A Gathering to Support the Sovereignty of First Nations

By John Kane
http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com
On Tuesday, September 14, 2010 starting at 5:00 PM there will be a gathering along the New York State Thruway where it passes through the Seneca Nation Territory of Cattaraugus. The gathering site can be accessed at the Big Indian Smoke Shop and Fuel Station on Mile Strip Road in Cattaraugus. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to come and bring as many friends as possible. The gathering will be a family friendly event to support the People of the First Nations. Our non-native support is both appreciated and important. The gathering has the potential to not only show support for Native Sovereignty and Autonomy but to protest the over reaching of authority by the State and Federal governments into the lives of individuals. It is important that people realize that attempts to cause economic harm to Native economies are not just attacks based on race but on class. Big business and wealthy politicians are waging war against anyone they can marginalize; whether it is based on the color of our skin or the size of our wallets.
Join us to send a message to those that want to keep blaming us for their own incompetence. See some friends and make some new ones. Stand up and be recognized and find out who really will have your back when things get tough.

Birthday Message from Leonard Peltier

contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
September 6, 2010

By Leonard PeltierSisters, brothers, friends and supporters,
I wish I could sit across the table from each of you right now. We'd share a meal and reflect on changes in this world over these 35 or so years. Yes, I pay attention to things on the outside (as much as possible). I know the world is in turmoil and I ache for the Native people who languish in utter poverty on reservations and in inner cities across America.

As a young man, all I wanted to do was make a positive difference in the People's lives. I'll turn 66 years old next week and I still want that. It's difficult to have an impact in my current circumstances, though. That's a constant source of frustration for me. On the outside, given the chance to roll up my sleeves once again, I suspect I'd still be somewhat frustrated. All that must be done is more than any one person can accomplish. I'd still like the opportunity to do my part.

Thinking back to those days on Pine Ridge, what I remember is the funerals. There were so many funerals... So many families lost loved ones.

There was a powerful force at work on the reservation back then, one with a single purpose: to stamp out the last resistance of the Lakota people.

We (the Oglala traditionals and members of the American Indian Movement) stood up because we were trying to defend our People. It was the right thing to do. We had - have - the right to survive.

The land was being stolen, too - used for mining mostly. No thought was given to the disposal of toxic waste. The rivers were full of poisons. Not much has changed, I hear.

In those days, though, the reservation was torn apart by a tribal dispute and the federal government armed one group against another. The result was a long line of tragedies for the People of Pine Ridge - and for the People who were there that day in June 1975.

I honestly understand the pain and anguish suffered by all concerned and I have been part of that suffering.

I have watched people lie on the witness stand countless times and felt the doors closing on me.

I have heard judges admonish prosecutors for allowing false evidence in and, in some cases, for participating in the falsification itself.

The government hid evidence, too.

Or manufactured it. Literally.

The courts say none of this is even in dispute anymore. So I wonder, if the American standard of justice is still "beyond a reasonable doubt", why am I still here?

Some people have had their convictions overturned because of one constitutional violation. The number of constitutional violations in my case is staggering. Yet, I continue to wait here for the same justice to be applied for me.

I hope that someday someone can put it all on the table and show the enormity of the railroading I have been victimized by.

Last year, as you know, my parole was denied. That was a disappointment, but I am not defeated. My fight for freedom - for my People and myself - is not over. I am a pipe carrier and a Sundancer. Abandoning The Struggle is not - never will be - a consideration.

I am an Indian man and proud of it. I love my People and culture and spiritual beliefs. My enemies like to suggest otherwise and seek to rob me of all dignity. They won't succeed.

When I look back over all the years, I remember all the good people who have stood up for me, for a day or a decade. Of course, many have stayed with me all along the way. I think of the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have signed petitions for me, too ... people on the poorest of reservations to the highest of political offices.

As we have learned over these many years, my freedom won't come quickly or easily. To succeed, the coming battle will have to be hard fought. Please continue to help my Committee and legal team as you have always done. Your support is more important now than ever before. When freedom comes, it will be due in no small part to the actions you take on my behalf.

Again, thank you for remembering me. You can't know the comfort you bring to an innocent man locked away from the world for so very long.

Doksha,
Leonard Peltier
#89637-132
USP-Lewisburg
US Penitentiary
PO Box 1000
Lewisburg, PA 17837
--Launched into cyberspace by the
Leonard Peltier Defence Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
Phone: 701/235-2206
Fax: 701/235-5045
E-mail: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Visit http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

VIDEO: Russell Means: He's Back

Russell Means, 71, returns after a period of pain and illness.

The Beauty of Language: Like a river, Dine', O'odham and Spanish

The Beauty of Language: Like a river, Dine', O'odham and Spanish

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

TUCSON -- Like a river, they flowed together, Sherwin Bitsui's Dine', with Ofelia Zepeda's O'odham and Alberto Alvaro Rios' Spanish. They spoke of the whispers, of the waters and of this desert, translating their own works and the poetry of others.

With the image of "the reed we came up through," Bitsui began the night of poetry, reading from his first book of poetry, Shapeshift and recent book, Flood Song.

Bitsui weaves in dream time, from the Longest Walk, to the times of television. His language rests in the bedrock of red sandstone, the scent of juniper, sage and red earth, after a sweet rain.

Speaking of his parents from White Cone on the Navajo Nation, he said he called home to ask about some of the words, from his father a carpenter, and mother, who helped with the Dine' translations.

Zepeda, too, struggled with the translation of the word, "Obsidian," and discovered there was no translation into O'odham.

Still, with language, there is always a way to make the words happen.

Zepeda's poetic words embraced the desert here, honored the sacred mountain, Baboquivari. O'odham say when you can see the mountain, you know that you are home. She shared a time of how the blacktop carried her home again, home to that delirious heat, home to that desert light, home to anonymity, home to herself.

When she spoke in O'odham, the sounds were round, flowing like a round dance flows.

She spoke of javelinas eating the jack-o-lanterns.

These are the dreams of javelinas.

Rios' poetry came from the outer edges, like the jackrabbits who get caught in the flames of the brush fires before the monsoon rains come, in the Sonoran Desert. There is the poignant image of the jackrabbits on fire, running and bringing the fire with them.

In Borderlines, Rios compared the map of the world to a butcher's drawing of a cow, the borders of the world compared to the lines of where to cut. But, no, he adds, this land is a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces all fit together, this land is our lives.

And as it happened, they read as the wild and delirious heat of summer comes to an end, that time when the dust comes up to greet you, when there is the promise of rain, but only dust in the mouth, as Zepeda describes in her poetry.

It is here in this wonderful and glorious desert, in the open air of the Poetry Center, that these languages flow together like a river.

With the languages weaving between Dine', O'odham and Spanish, Zepeda said, "I wanted to make sure we heard the language tonight."

Rios, too, shared the poetry of Natalia Toldeo, words from the language of Zapotec, of men and fear.

As the three poets shared their poetry, helicopters traced back and forth above, no doubt on a medical or search mission, their noise reminding of the nearness of death, their noise reminding of the nearness of death on the border.