First Voices Indigenous Radio: Occupation Movement and Language

First Voices Indigenous Radio
ON THE AIR: WBAI 99.5 FM Every Thursday at 9 AM Eastern
www.firstvoicesindigenousradio.org

Listen to Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Lakota from Cheyenne River, S.D., online at WBAI in New York. In recent programs, Native American guests discuss the occupy movement and the language of occupation.

http://www.firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/program_archives

Listen to the Program December 29, 2011	EDITED VERSION FOR WFTE - SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA DEMELZA CHAMPAGNE, JOHN FREISEN, JAKE LITTLE, JEREME AMOUAK and FARREL - NEW YORK - All join in a discussion about the current "Occupation" movement and the use of language. "To most, the irony of a progressive social movement using the term “occupy” to reshape how Americans think about issues of democracy and equality has been clear. After all, it is generally nations, armies and police who occupy, usually by force. And in this, the United States has been a leader. The American government is just now after nine years ending its overt occupation of Iraq, is still entrenched in Afghanistan and is maintaining troops on the ground in dozens of countries worldwide. All this is not to obscure the fact that the United States as we know it came into being by way of an occupation — a gradual and devastatingly violent one that all but extinguished entire Native American populations across thousands of miles of land." "In this sense, Occupy Wall Street has occupied language, has made “occupy” its own. And, importantly, people from diverse ethnicities, cultures and languages have participated in this linguistic occupation — it is distinct from the history of forcible occupation in that it is built to accommodate all, not just the most powerful or violent." "Occupy Language might draw inspiration from both the way that the Occupy movement has reshaped definitions of “occupy,” which teaches us that we give words meaning and that discourses are not immutable, and from the way indigenous movements have contested its use, which teaches us to be ever-mindful about how language both empowers and oppresses, unifies and isolates." "By occupying language, we can expose how educational, political, and social institutions use language to further marginalize oppressed groups; resist colonizing language practices that elevate certain languages over others; resist attempts to define people with terms rooted in negative stereotypes; and begin to reshape the public discourse about our communities, and about the central role of language in racism and discrimination." excerpts from H. Samy Alin's article What If We Occupied The Language?
Listen to the Program December 22, 2011	EDITED VERSION FOR WFTE SCRANTON, PA (Please go to Audioport.org for your stations downloadable version) TOM WEISS rideforrenewables.com. December 21, 2011 (Port Arthur, TX) – Renewable energy advocate Tom Weis ended his 2,150-mile Keystone XL “Tour of Resistance” at the fence line community of West Port Arthur in the shadow of giant oil refineries spewing toxic air emissions. Weis launched the tour 10 weeks ago at the U.S./Canada border and has pedaled the entire U.S. length of the proposed tar sands pipeline in his “rocket trike” in support of landowners and communities in six states fighting Keystone XL. Pipeline opponents joined him in demanding that President Obama reject TransCanada’s presidential permit without delay. FRED HO and CZARINA AGGABAO THELEN www.scientificsoulsessions.com Participate in a general discussion regarding the use of language and the latest article from "What If We Occupied The Language" by H. Samy Alim here is an excerpt from the article "the irony of a progressive social movement using the term “occupy” to reshape how Americans think about issues of democracy and equality has been clear. After all, it is generally nations, armies and police who occupy, usually by force. And in this, the United States has been a leader. The American government is just now after nine years ending its overt occupation of Iraq, is still entrenched in Afghanistan and is maintaining troops on the ground in dozens of countries worldwide. All this is not to obscure the fact that the United States as we know it came into being by way of an occupation — a gradual and devastatingly violent one that all but extinguished entire Native American populations across thousands of miles of land."
Listen to the Program December 15, 2011	EDITIED VERSION FOR WFTE SCRANTON, PA. GRANDMOTHER MARGARET BEHAN-Montana- is a member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers (www.grandmotherscouncil.org). These women have been travelling to each other's homelands for several years and next year it is Grandmother Margaret's turn to host them for their 11th Council gathering. The dates of the Council have been set for July 20th through August 5th, 2012 and it will be held in Grandmother Margaret's homeland of the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Lame Deer, located in southeastern part of Montana. All are welcome to attend. Registration can be done on the Grandmother's website listed above. If you would like to help in any way with the gathering, or have questions, please call Lisa Caswell at (646)267-7244 JOHN KANE - New York - (www.letstalknativepride.blogspot.com) on Kaneratiio or Roger Jock was arrested in upstate New York State -, was indicted by a grand jury for second-degree grand larceny for allegedly depriving deeded owner, Horst Wuersching, of a 240-acre parcel on Route 11 near the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino. The grand-larceny charge refers to the theft of land with a value above $50,000. According to the County Treasurer's Office, the parcel is assessed at $16,800. But there has not been a land revaluationfor more than 50 years, leaving the equalization rate there at 3.12 percent. The true market value of the land at 100 percent equalization is $538,462. Jock was released under the supervision of the Probation Department, and an order of protection was issued forbidding him from going back to the disputed land. The "irony" of the story is a Native man Indigenous to a parcel of land in the middle of Mohawk Territory being "stolen" from a white man! WAZIYATAWIN -Minnesota- (www.waziyatawin.net) of the Wahpetunwan Dakota discusses the terminology of "occupation" occupiers and their choice of language is indicative of lack of consciousness about Indigenous struggles, or a dismissal of the importance or relevance of those struggles. FRED HO - New York - (www.bigredmediainc.com) author, musician, philosopher and 3 time cancer survivor dialogues regarding "Capitialism is the cancer for the planet" and how a person would understand the toxicity one can avoid cointinuing the toxicities of manifest destiny. Posted at Censored News: http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

The Untouchables: News in Indian Country

Navajo and Apache children in prison at
Bosque Redondo, Fort Sumner, N.M.

The Untouchables: News in Indian Country

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

The most censored issues five years ago remain the most censored issues today. The issues censored by Indian Country Today, 2004-2006, remain censored today by both the mainstream media and the national Native media.

Those issues include Native Americans exposing the truth of US wars; the destruction of sacred lands; environmental genocide targeting Indian country; the co-opting of American Indian governments by the US and corporations; and casinos on Indian lands which benefit non-Indians while Native people suffer.

When Louise Benally, from Big Mountain on the Navajo Nation, compared the war in Iraq to the Longest Walk and deadly exile of Navajo people from their homelands, Indian Country Today refused to print it. Benally remembered her great-grandfather and other Navajos driven from their beloved homeland by the U.S. Army on foot for hundreds of miles while witnessing the murder, rape and starvation of their family and friends.

“I think these poor children had gone through so much, but, yet they had the will to go on and live their lives. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t be here today. It makes me feel very sad and I apply this to the situation in Iraq. I wonder how the Native Americans in the combat zone feel about killing innocent lives.”

When Bahe Katenay, Navajo from Big Mountain, pointed out that the Navajos birthplace of Dinetah, Place of Origin, is devastated by oil and gas wells in northwestern New Mexico, it was censored. Further when Katenay described the Navajo Nation Council as a “puppet” of the US federal government, it was censored.
“Gas reserves are drilled in places where White Shell Woman was found by Talking God and places where she did her Kinalda (puberty ceremony). Places where the Twin Warrior Gods made their divine deeds are also desecrated with drilling, piping, wells and recreation activities. The Dine’ have lost these lands and their ‘puppet’ tribal government has refused to fight for a claim to this area,” Katenay said.

In one of the most blatant and longterm cases of censorship, the uranium mining in Lakota country was censored along with an interview with Buffy Sainte Marie. Indian Country Today censored the article for seven years. When a portion of it was finally published, the portion that referred to Lakota lands targeted by uranium mining companies was deleted.

The fact that Raytheon Missiles has a manufacturing plant on the same land as the commercial Navajo farm, Navajo Agricultural Products Industries on Navajoland near Farmington, N.M., was censored. The article was censored at Indian Country Today as NAPI began offering its foods to Cuba in a trade agreement. NAPI also boasts of using genetically-modified seeds from Monsanto for its crops. Foods grown with Monsanto seeds endanger the health of people and the seeds endanger local Native crops by way of cross-pollination.

When Lenny Foster, Navajo, visited Leonard Peltier in prison, Foster’s comments about Peltier and the religious freedom denied inmates in state and federal prisons was also censored. Today, there are few investigative reports on the fact that Native prison inmates are denied access to ceremonies, and many are forced to cut their hair. There are few investigative articles on the legal case of Peltier.

Apaches protesting the US senators involved in placing telescopes on sacred Mount Graham was censored. The most blatant censoring at Indian Country Today was an article on former Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld profiteering from the sale of Tamiflu during fear mongering about the bird flu. The article was not only censored, but was rewritten as an endorsement for Tamiflu. At the same time, then Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was among those who pushed for his state to stockpile millions of dollars of the medicine.

Today, Indian lands targeted by toxic dumps, uranium mining, coal-fired power plants and oil and gas companies are seldom the subject of journalists in Indian country. While an occasional press release may be published, or rewritten, there are few journalists that dig into the backdoor deals between energy companies, tribal governments, and the US government. There are few, if any, reporters out on the land really covering the news.

There are few journalists who question why there is no data on the longterm devastating health effects of uranium mining, coal fired power plants and oil and gas drilling in Indian country. Few journalists report on how the coal-fired power plants on the Navajo Nation and elsewhere are a major cause of pollution and global warming resulting in the melting of the ice in the Arctic, and the displacement of Indian people and the destruction of habitat in the Arctic.

There are no journalists out at Big Mountain or Black Mesa reporting on the hardships that the Navajo people endure in winter, hauling water and chopping wood, with grocery stores and doctors down distant impassable roads. When blizzards hit the Dakotas, or Lakota children die in trailer home fires because all the family has are small electric heaters, few reporters show any interest.

There are no investigative journalists digging into the role of Ariz. Senator John McCain, Peabody Coal and others in the so-called Navajo Hopi land dispute. The real purpose for relocating Navajos on Black Mesa was to clear the land for coal mining which fuels the power plant operated by Salt River Project at Page, Ariz. It provides electricity for distant cities while many Navajos live without electricity. While coal fired power plants and coal mining drain the underground aquifers, many Navajos live without running water. Meanwhile, the US pushes to steal the water rights of Navajos and American Indians to rivers throughout the west.

Meanwhile, the urban newspapers, far from the pollution and desperation, are cheerleaders for the coal-fired power plants and the theft of Indian water rights.

Today Native Americans and other people of color continue to be targeted by recruiters and advertisements as expendables for the bogus wars of politicians and profiteering corporations.

The media continues to cheerlead the war in Afghanistan, without examining the facts. Further, Native Americans are censored when they protest the role of American Indian governments promoting the US military and wars. When Native Americans point out that the war corporations are using Native lands and Native people to kill other Indigenous Peoples, they are censored. This includes protests of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s partnership in constructing drones at Advanced Ceramics Research in Tucson; allowing the US Border Patrol to control Tohono O’odham lands; and of allowing US spy towers on Tohono O’odham land.

The media continues to create border xenophobia of people of color at the US/Mexico border, resulting in the militarization of Indigenous borderlands, the abuse of Indigenous peoples at the border and the promotion of profiteering corporations, including privately-owned prisons.

One of the most censored issues today is the fact that some casinos on Native American land provide millions of dollars to non-Indian management companies, donations to outside charities and for state revenues, while their own people live in desperation. This includes the Tohono O’odham who live in desperate need of housing, jobs, safe water to drink, firewood in winter, and even food. While this reporter was on staff at Indian Country Today, the subject of dollars from lucrative casino flowing to non-Indians, while Indian people suffered, was a forbidden news topic.

It is not a question of money to cover the expenses of reporters in Indian country, it is censorship. Money is spent elsewhere in Indian country, when it could be spent providing real investigative reporters with funds to do their jobs.

For armchair journalists in Indian country, these are the untouchables, forbidden topics hidden beneath the superficial news coverage, plagiarism and ten minute phone call of today’s journalism in Indian country.
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See censored articles 2004-2006 written by Brenda Norrell at http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/ Brenda Norrell was a longtime staff reporter for Indian Country Today who was censored and terminated in 2006. Norrell is the publisher of Censored News www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com and contributor to Narco News.
To request permission to repost this article contact: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Transcription: Green anarchist Zerzan's talk at O'odham rights event

Remarks by John Zerzan at 'De-Occupy O'odham Lands' benefit at Dry River Radical Collective in Tucson, for Tohono O’odham fighting mining on their traditional lands, in December 2011

Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Photo: John Zerzan and Ofelia Rivas at
Dry River/by Brenda Norrell
Click to Listen at Censored Blogtalk Radio

It’s an honor and a privilege to be back on Tohono O’odham land, and especially because I’m neither Native nor local. It’s an honor that way to be part of this effort to get some support for traditional O’odham culture and the elders. It’s also great to be back at Dry River. Dry River is so awesome, and tonight shows that.

I identify primarily with the anarcho-primitivist point of view. It goes by several names; there are some Native folks we know who call us neo-primitivists, and green anarchy is a common descriptive term, but it really doesn’t mean much of anything unless it connects with the concerns of Native people and has an awareness of the indigenous dimension. I think that we are seeing more of that, and it makes me really happy to see that.

Last week up in Scottsdale, that was on offer: the connection, the alliance if you will, between black bloc and indigenous people, anarchists standing with Native people, standing in defense of the elders. We saw this almost two years ago at the anti-Arpaio march—a similar situation. It was less disruptive, but it was at that time the emergence of what was called the DOA–– Dine O’odham Anarchist group––a concerted effort involving people who came together from those identifications.

And we’re also seeing at the same time, and it seems like so many things are moving so fast… after what happened up at Scottsdale last week, on this past Sunday in Oakland, the Occupy Oakland considered the proposal to change the name Occupy Oakland to De-Occupy Oakland, or De-Colonize Oakland. And this is a direct challenge, I believe, from what was accomplished in Scottsdale, this kind of emerging joint effort, the realization of its primary importance. What happened was that the proposal was narrowly defeated. They needed a two-thirds majority to change it; a sizeable minority, just over a third blocked that. I wasn’t there; but some of us have had some pipelines to that long discussion. There’s an awesome YouTube video of some of the highlights of this 3-hour debate.

I thought, we are seeing a real clarification. We’re seeing what’s really at stake, and I think we’re coming to a kind of crossroads. And one thing that stood out: it’s making certain choices a little more recognizable or a little harder to avoid, it seems to me. One of the people spoke in support of not changing the name, in support of sticking with Occupy, in support of not recognizing in a name the importance of De-Occupy, these lands are occupied, we’re standing on stolen lands, those of us who are not Native. His statement was, “We need to defend our legacy.” This in support of the word Occupy, that identification.

Well, what is that legacy that’s so important to defend? It’s nothing else but the legacy of the Left—that glorious eurocentric commitment to Progress. How much more Progress can we stand, can anybody stand, can the species of this planet stand? And yet they continue with this leftist program that consists of things like domestication, civilization, industrialism, mass society, mass production, industrial life, mass globalization, mass culture—some of these things are just so glaring, the difference between mass culture and all of its emptiness and pathology, compared to indigenous cultures. But these people cling to it.

Various people are getting it. This is a turning point. Which way do we go? Which way does the anarchist thing go? That’s for starters for some of us who are anarchists.

When I was here last I mentioned a visit to Oregon from Elena Poniatowska, a grand old lady on the radical side from Mexico City. She was in Eugene giving a public lecture. I believe she turned 80 on the day that she was there. And she gave a marvelous talk about her decades of being a pain in the butt to the different regimes in Mexico City, a lot of stories, just a really cool woman. She didn’t mention anarchy in Mexico, and you know we do have some pipelines even up in Oregon as to the upsurge of anarchist activities in Mexico. There are all kinds of acts, across the spectrum: animal liberation, earth liberation, burning down McDonalds, burning down shopping malls, really going to town. 

Anyway she didn’t mention it, and I kind of thought to myself, well, she’s an old lady of the left, anarchy probably isn’t her thing. But during the Q and A I asked, can you comment on this, can you give us your take? And she kind of paused and she said, “I don’t really know about that.” Then she broke out in this big smile and she said, “I can’t tell you much about the specifics, but I can tell you this: there is nothing that is happening now that isn’t anarchist.”

And I think there is more awareness even just since last year, when you see these action groups in Mexico that are explicitly anti-civilization and anti-technology. I think we’re seeing again the realization of the indigenous touchstone. That’s the key connection, that’s the thing that has almost been lost, but now we have a chance to learn from that and stand with that and renounce this suicidal trip that frankly, the Left has been so much embracing. Of course, there are individuals on the Left, I was on the left, I was a union organizer, was a marxist years ago, so that’s me too, and people can change. But these people that defend Occupy in explicitly those terms—“We have to defend our legacy”—you know, some people maybe will remain clueless. That’s the choice we have.

You could start at any place, but for anarchists, what does that mean? Anarchy is the only game in town, partly by default. Who is a socialist or a communist anymore? It’s so discredited. It’s up to us, it’s our responsibility to figure it out and to connect in the right way. So much is moving so quickly. We see the Occupy thing, and there’s the choice for them: what kind of orientation do we want? We see the Arab Spring, and some of that is so incredible, like Syria, every day and night people are getting killed, but they’re there, all the time. There is a radical energy at loose in the world, and we need to see that and be bolstered by that.

The one thing that everybody wants, the one thing that we can talk about and potentially connect on, is community. We all know it’s gone, every developer and every politician likes to talk about it all the time. But there isn’t any community in mass society because community has to be face-to-face. That is the big draw for Occupy. It’s finally come to me, being mystified by the Occupy movement. Occupy isn’t real swift in terms of ideas, but it’s not about ideas, it’s about community. When people get to have some community, that is a turn-on. That in itself is a value, even in circumscribed locations which are now being attacked in a pretty coordinated way, but I don’t think it’s going away.

I heard a Ute elder say in Salt Lake City a few years ago that “Civilization is the grave of community.” That was a very profound thing to say and worth thinking about.

There’s nobody that doesn’t know that everything is going to hell so fast in terms of everything you can look at. Just in the past few days, the biggest spike in heat-trapping emissions in history; in terms of the U.S., 14 extreme weather situations that cost a billion dollars apiece or more; and the biggest increase in temperature in history. Maybe there are a few right-wing pinheads who can somehow make themselves believe it isn’t here, but it is here, the eco-catastrophe is here. Something that is even more of a grabber in a certain way is what’s happening on the personal/interpersonal level. 80 million people who have significant insomnia. The number of people on anti-depressants. Now we’re seeing these family massacres, we’re seeing these horrendous shootings every day.... How else can we measure the emptiness, the lack of community?

When you don’t have community, you don’t have solidarity, you don’t have these ties that hold people together, social ties, then anything can happen. And anything is happening. And then the Left wants to talk about its legacy, and they don’t want to talk about de-Occupy, de-Colonize. They have no interest in respecting the integrity of indigenous cultures or lifeways or traditions, the very thing we need to be aware of and that we need to stand together with. When the elders feel it appropriate to speak to us, we need to respect that. We need to listen and we need to go forward with that consciousness of what we can get from that. Where else can we get it? What else is the legacy? I know what legacy I’d like to learn from.

Mohawk Nation News 'Sky is not Falling'

MNN: SKY IS NOT FALLING
By Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com


MNN.  Jan. 1, 2012.  No.  The world is not coming to an end.  It’s continuing.  We’re been lead to think that we are heading into a trap to be devoured if we don’t submit.  Terrorized people are afraid to take action.

The dishonorable gang of inbred elites try to run the world.  The upper middle class, their hired guns, have been replaced by machines. They’re leaving Great Turtle Island.   

The people of color are staying. 

Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, boasted, “You don’t have to become a drug dealer, pimp or a prostitute when you can wash our bathroom toilets andfloors”.  [Is he referring to his filthy mouth?]

Some colonists want to join the Indigenous. They know it’s all our land,water, air and resources. Are they ready to live under the rules of nature? 

They could follow the white roots to the source.  If their mind is clean and they agree to obey the laws of the Rotinoshonnionwe, they can take shelter beneath the tree of the long leaves. 

The bankers are the pirates. They invented the Maritime Admiralty Legal system to settle business disputes around the world. They incorporated states like the US and Canada and illegally put them on Indigenous lands. People who signed on became their property. Their official flags cannily be placed on buildings, not on Great Turtle Island, which was never surrendered. 

The Haldimand Proclamation 1784 is unique. A track within the vast Haudenosaunee Territory was set aside as a British Protectorate forever for the Mohawks.  Their agents of the crown [federal, provincial, municipal,etc.] that breach their supreme law are guilty of high treason.  The Military Court can punish them by firing squad or hanging.  Encroachers beware!

The bankers fear becoming obsolete should an infinite free fuel be found. They are blinding us by warfare. Their worst is coming as they approach their death throws.

When they say peace, they really mean war. Peace is uncompromising truth. Nature is real and true. They hope everybody is unnatural like them.  

Their link to the world is through technology, while they try to disconnect us from the natural world. 

Their corporations create supermen, that push the dooms day clock and threaten nuclear war. 

The world will survive.  The bankers can’t buy mother earth.   

They tried to turn Great Turtle Island into a prison where life and the environment are not precious.  For 500 years we’ve been penned up by these maniacs.  Now they are going, leaving behind our land and life. 

Here’s an idea! The head rulers can sit in a big room inside a bunker. The walls are covered with hundreds of televisions. They hold remotes and watch everything that’s going on.  They click, kill and neutralize those who might undo their position and power.

We let them think they are all powerful, while we go about our lives and ignore them.  They can flick all they want.  “Change the channel, honey!”  We’re in charge of the cable and what they seeing! 

Their greatest fear is, “They will be cast down from whence they came for all eternity”.
 
They need to turn money into more money and to continue their illusion.    

As Bob Dylan sang in 1963 “Masters of War”: “Let me ask you one question, is your money that good?  Could it buy you forgiveness, do you think that it could?  I think you will find when your death takes its toll, all the money made will never buy back your soul”.   

Their treasure has no real value.  Mother Earth and the great natural power are the dictators.

MNN Mohawk Nation News Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com  For more news, books, to donate tomaintain the website [PayPal] and to sign up for MNN newsletters go to www.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Categories “COLONIALISM/ART/CULTURE”.  Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0

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