IEN: NO! $50 billion loan guarantees for nuclear reactors

From the Indigenous Environmental Network to our Friends:

Please ask your friends, colleagues, community organizations and (for Native Nations), ask your Tribal leadership, to take action, and contact their Senators to stop $50 BILLION in new taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for construction of new nuclear reactors!

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee late on the night of January 27 snuck in a provision to President Obama's economic stimulus package that would allow as much as $50 BILLION of your dollars to be used as loan guarantees for construction of new nuclear reactors. This would be on top of the $18.5 Billion taxpayer dollars already authorized by Congress during the Bush administration.

These loan guarantees would mean more nuclear reactors and more radioactive waste piling up in communities across our country. Please be reminded that It has been the plan of the U.S. government and the nuclear power and utility industry to permanently store its high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Yucca Mountain is within the traditional lands of the Western Shoshone Nation. Spiritual leaders and elders of the Western Shoshone have consistently opposed using the sacred lands of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump. Approval of this $50 billion loan package within the Obama economic stimulus plans would have devastating affect on the treaty rights of the Western Shoshone Nation to protect their sacred lands and provide a safe and secure homeland for their future generation.

These loan guarantees would also mean less money for safer, cheaper and cleaner energy alternatives like solar and wind power.

These loan guarantees would further stimulate an unsustainable and dangerous push by the mining industry to expand uranium mining in the homeland of Native and non-Native rural communities from Arizona, New Mexco, Nebraska, South and North Dakota and First Nation lands of Canada. Any expansion of nuclear power will need uranium to fuel these reactors. Uranium mining within Native Nation territories has already left a legacy of environmental and human health degradadtion and injustice.

The provision is vaguely worded. It would authorize $50 Billion in new loan guarantees for "eligible technologies." These technologies include nuclear, "clean coal," renewable energy sources and electric transmission. But the stimulus package is intended to create new jobs and economic activity over the next two years. Not only should new nuclear reactors and the false concept of "clean coal" be excluded from taxpayer support, but the reality is that neither technology is ready to produce any jobs within the next two years.

The Department of Energy apparently would have to decide how to allocate this $50 Billion. If it all went to safe, cost-effective renewable energy sources,that would be one thing. Unfortunately, the provision's backers, like Sens. Robert Bennett (R-UT) and Thomas Carper (D-DE) are clear that their intent is that it would go for new nuclear reactor construction. Yet the Congressional Budget Office predicts a 50% default rate by nuclear utilities using this program! This is simply a nuclear bailout waiting to happen, and we can't afford it.

But it's not too late. You can help stop this nonsense. The original plan was for the Senate to vote on the stimulus package during this week of February 2. However, the Senate and the House are still in debate on the stimulus package. There is still time to contact you Senator!

Please CALL your Senators now (Senate Switchboard: 202-224-3121) and tell them to stop all loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors. AND, please send an e-mail to your Senators with the same message using the form below. (Note: We encourage you to edit the wording to personalize your e-mail and reflect your own concerns. IEN networks with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) who manages this email campaign below.)

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/t/4100/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=993

Thank you,

Tom Goldtooth, IEN

Michigan: Racism toward Native Americans in school

Civil rights accusation made against West Iron
By NIKKI YOUNK, Staff Writer

IRON RIVER- An Iron River man has filed a racial discrimination complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) against the West Iron County Public Schools.
The man claimed that his son, a second-grader at Stambaugh Elementary, has been singled out because he is a Native American. According to the complaint, a white teacher grabbed the student on Jan. 26. The teacher has allegedly grabbed the student multiple times in the past, but the school district has taken no action against the teacher, the complaint added. "My son has had problems with white students, yet he is written up and the white students are not," the man stated in the complaint. "The respondent (West Iron County Public Schools) is looking for ways to write him up and force him to leave school."
Dave LaFreniere, regional director of the Michigan chapter of the American Indian Movement, has been following the case for years. "This child has been picked on since kindergarten, the kids beat up on him, but the school administration just sends him home," he said. "The kid has a right to an education." Read article ...
http://www.ironmountaindailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/505812.html?nav=5002

Arizona: Global Justice Teach-in

8th Annual Local to Global Justice Teach-in is coming!
RECLAIM THE COMMONS
Inauguration Parade: Friday February 27, 2009
Teach-in Saturday February 28 - Sunday March 1, 2009
Farmer Building ASU Tempe
Highlights of the event:
Gustavo Esteva, a Mexican activist and "de-professionalized intellectual." He is the founder of the Universidad de la Tierra in the Mexican city of Oaxaca. He currently works at the Centre for Intercultural Dialogues and Exchanges (CEDI) in the city of Oaxaca, and is a former advisor with the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas for the negotiations with the government. He works with several indigenous groups and NGO's from all over the world. Gustavo will speak on Saturday Feb. 28 from 1:30-3:30pm
Luis Fernandez, author of Policing Dissent: Social Control and the Anti-Globalization Movement (2008, Rutgers University Press). His research interests include protest policing, social movements, globalization, and issues in the social control of late modernity.He is Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. Fernandez is one of the founders of Local to Global Justice. Luis's panel discussion is scheduled Sunday March 1st, from 3:30-4:30pm
Krysten Sinema, elected to the Arizona State Legislature in 2004 and re-elected in 2006 to continue serving central Phoenix in District 15. She holds a Juris Doctorate and a Master's degree in Social Work from Arizona State University. Sinema is an adjunct professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University and practices criminal defense law in the Phoenix community. Krysten will be part of panel scheduled Sunday March 1st from 3:30-4:30pm
Sang-hea Kil, her research focuses on the nexus between immigration and crime, media and discourse analysis, and whiteness and nationalism within a critique of racism and the social construction of USA-Mexico border. She is also interested inc oalition work within a scholar-activist perspective that stems from her political work around issues of human rights, anti-globalization, women of color, and anti-war efforts. Sang-hea will be part of panel scheduled Sunday March 1st from 3:30 -4:30pm.
There will be lots of activities for kids and teens! Youth ages 3-17 are invited to participate in workshops, art projects, and skill shares on both days.
Dozens of local grassroots and student groups will lead workshops on a wide variety of topics, from sustainability to immigrant rights to bike healthy food. You're sure to find topics that will engage you and inspire you to act!
Music will be provided by the People's Party, Cultura Libertaria and the Black River Bandit.
Delicious free food will be provided all weekend, with the help of Green Vegetarian Restaurant and Tempe Food Not Bombs.
The Teach-in runs from 8:30 am - 7 pm Saturday and 8:30 am - 5 pm Sunday, so feel free to stop in at any time on either day. For a full schedule of events, plus parking info and directions, visit www.localtoglobal.org.
We rely on volunteers to bring you this completely free event. Please consider offering a couple hours of your time on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Send us an email at L2GVolunteers@gmail.com if you can help!
The Teach-in is funded entirely by donations and university funding. If you can spare a small donation, it will help us make this the best Teach-in ever! Just click the "Donate" button at www.localtoglobal.org
, or bring a few extra dollars to the event itself.
If you have any general questions about the Teach-in, send an email to localtoglobaljustice@yahoo.com.
See you at the Local to Global Justice Teach-In!
Fri, Feb 27 - Sun, March 1, 2009
Arizona State University - Tempe Campus
www.localtoglobal.org

Mohawk Nation News: 'Fake Obasms Abound'

FAKE “OBASMS” ABOUND WHILE U.S. PRESIDENT TRIES TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY

Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationews.com

Feb. 5, 2009. U.S. President Obama says he’s going to stimulate the Americans’ economy to stop its dive to oblivion. They’re looking to him for “obasms” because they don’t know how to save summer’s abundance to get them through the winter. No matter how hard he tries, nothing’s coming up! Like drug addicts hooked on dope, they want another fix. They think they can’t survive without it.
Obama is facing a formidable government bureaucracy that’s controlled by a few “banksters” [bankers and gangsters]. The hierarchical system has jobs for the chosen few arranged in a pyramidal chain of command that is imbedded in every private and public financial, educational, political, economic, trade, military, pharmaceutical and social institution. Far from being “public servants” they’re on the take and basically never do anything useful for anyone. They grab as much money and benefits as possible and do almost no work. In fact, the less they do, the more likely they are to be promoted.
At Indian Affairs offices in Ottawa, their desks are shiny and their feet are sitting on top of them. In the meantime the people they are supposed to serve are living in forced squalor. We’ve seen these bureaucratic bloodsuckers sit and listen to Indigenous people explain their dire situations in some isolated community. They’ve travelled from far away to ask for help. After hearing about the horrific situation, the bureaucratic leech puts his hands behind his head and says, “We can’t help you. You have to go see somebody else”. This is known as “passing the buck” to someone else until they wear them out and they go home with nothing.
Our suggestion to Mr. Obama is to dump this scrounging class system. These freeloading gate keepers’ jobs are to sit behind the desk and take some of the cream as it passes by them. In the end, they’ve done a good job if they’ve made sure that the money meant for the people or program gets almost nothing. Indian Affairs is loaded with non-natives who are trained in that colonial system.
The ground under the feet of emperor Obama is shaking. If he wants to get more money to the people, he should get rid of this meat grinding slaughterhouse. These plunderers who were sent to Turtle Island by the European elite came here to kill us off so they could steal everything that wasn’t nailed down. 115 million of us were killed off. The elite who run these systems have to change or adapt to the new reality, and not just by getting rid of their babysitter, cleaning lady, chauffer or maid. The conditions they have created are critical everywhere. The mobs are getting hysterical. People are resisting and reacting worldwide. Some think the elites are going to run. Where? To outer space? Good riddance!
This is how this pecking order system works. At the top of the triangle sits the boss who got there by hook or by crook. So the meanest scoundrel sits at the top, has long lunches, plays golf and hollers at people sometimes. Below him/her is a huge pyramid of people who “yes” the boss but call him down at the water cooler. The more people he has working under him, the more money he gets. The one with an empire of 100,000 employees is paid millions upon millions. The one with only two under him gets a much lower pay. So it pays to perpetuate the empire with more people in it even if they do nothing. After all, they have a direct line to siphon money out of the taxpayers’ pockets.
Let’s say that the government has budgeted $100,000 to fix a bad water plant problem in an isolated Indigenous community. This plant was designed by the bureaucrats and was meant to cause sicknesses and even death. They want to move these people because there is gold or diamonds underneath them or fresh water nearby to export to the U.S. 70% of Indigenous communities have toxic drinking water not fit for human consumption. This is no accident. Do you really belief the Canadian engineers are that incompetent?
The federal, provincial, municipal and band council hierarchies all take their cuts for “administration” all the way down to the community level. In the end there is almost nothing left to fix the problem. So another proposal goes up the chain, the bureaucrats do the same end run and pocket more money. They make even more by prolonging negotiations, court cases, licensing fees and making sure it doesn’t get resolved, because it wasn’t meant to. The people get warn down and are forced to make a deal that doesn’t benefit them. In the meantime, the band or tribal councilors who work with the banksters live like Middle Eastern sheiks, while crumbs trickle down to the people. If the problem was fixed, the whole hierarchy would fall down like a house of cards. Some bureaucrats might even lose their jobs, we hope. They fight like rats to keep their positions because they’re incompetent. Who else would hire them?
The whole set up of lazy bums depends on this system. It’s never meant to serve the people. In November 2008 the heads of the Wall Street financial hierarchies were the first to pocket $750 billion from the U.S. Treasury. Everyone appeared to oppose this package. The nation might have been threatened with martial law or something else that forced Congress to go along with it.
To save money and stimulate the economy, demolish the hierarchy. Then bring the relationship between the tax dollar and the grassroots closer together. Instead of getting one dollar out of $100, $95 will go where it’s needed.
Let’s b%&@!h slap these parasites in these bureaucracies who sit at desks behind glass walls in big buildings and stare at computers. They are roosting chickens who have jobs, homes, cars, university tuition for their kids and vacations for taking 90% in fees from the people whose resources they are stealing.
Why are the currencies going down in value? Why can’t they trade, ship goods or make contracts like they use to? The U.S. dollar is only paper with some printing on it that needs stolen Indigenous resources to prop it up. The thieves have been putting up our land and resources, without our knowledge or permission, as collateral on another parasite, the stock exchange. We never surrendered our land or resources to anyone. This form of raising money from the public is fraud. This toilet paper system of currency went along until we Indigenous people started to resist. We are the caretakers, trustees, protectors and defenders of the earth. Our responsibility is to help achieve balance within the natural world. Our duty is to stop the depletion of our resources which is killing everything and everybody. We, the stewards of mother earth, have spoken.
Karakwine & Staff, MNN Mohawk Nation News http://www.mohawknationnews.com/
katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations to PayPal at http://www.mohawknationnews.com/, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN “United States” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStorehttp://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois