Corporate vultures at the border

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

July 2007

NOGALES, Ariz. -- It is obvious that few members of Congress have spent any time along the Arizona border. What were they thinking? A multi-billion dollar border wall through impassable desert mountains?

Spy towers that depend on Wi-Fi? Anyone that uses Wi-Fi for their Internet connection will have a laugh about that. How about a couple of tin cans and a wire?
And sensors in remote no man's land? Cows and coyotes could be arrested.
What about the U.S. building that border wall on Mexico's land, south of the state of New Mexico? Whoops, what's a few million here and there.
And what about those unmanned aerial vehicles that the Border Patrol stopped using after one crashed near Nogales last year? How many millions do those drones cost? There are also questions about the lasers carried by those drones, lasers that could harm people if the drones fly too low or crash, as one drone already has.
It is a high-tech disaster.
What about the border radar's effect on the bats, bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Without pollinators, there will be no saguaro, yucca and desert plants.
What about the rare jaguars that cross here? These desert mountains are places of rare migrations of bats and jaguars.
They are also digging up graves. The remains of Tohono O'odham ancestors were dug up and removed for the border vehicle barrier on tribal land.
The U.S. says that in the name of national security, no federal laws apply. The Corporate U.S. can do anything it pleases.
Boeing has the Secure Border Initiative contract. That's the same Boeing whose subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan was providing torture flights to secret prisons, according to an ACLU lawsuit.
Now, Boeing has asked Elbit Systems, building the Apartheid Wall in occupied Palestine, to help with Arizona border security.
Meanwhile, once the U.S. stops all these people from entering the country -- and those who are here from working -- who is going to do America's dirty work?
I just took a train from northern California to the southern part of the state, stopping in Martinez, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Santa Monica.
Every waitress, restaurant owner, motel clerk, motel maid, taxi driver, street cleaner and bus driver that I encountered spoke Spanish as a first language.
I didn't check anyone's documents, but it is safe to say that if all the undocumented workers were deported from California, the entire state's economy would collapse. It would be similar in other states, with Arizona's construction industry hard hit.
So instead of granting Bush-friendly corporations a few more billions to play around with Wi-Fi in the desert mountains (really), cow-tripping sensors, crashing drones and death-inducing legislation, why not put money into real solutions.
We could begin by saying "thank you" to those cooking our meals, cleaning up after us, building our houses and caring for our children.
We could start by caring.
People are dying in the Arizona desert. It is nearly 120 degrees out there in the Arizona desert. Americans are allowing people to die for want of a drink of water. Very few people seem to care.
The world is not holding America, self-proclaimed as the human rights champion of the world, accountable for allowing thousands of people to die in the desert.
They are dying now; few even care to search for the bodies.
They wait for the vultures to signal them.
--Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

UPDATE: CorpWatch: Boeing's high-tech fence falters:

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14552

See the list of technology for the Secure Border Initiative, on Boeing's website.
Scroll down for specifics -- microwaves, lasers, iris and facial biometrics collections and unmanned aerial vehicles -- whose health risks and other dangers are still being researched:
http://www.sbinetbizopps.com/pdsfeedback.aspx

UPDATE: Israel Elbit's contract at the Arizona border:
http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/11/experts_at_buil.html

High-tech border network could fall prey to cyberattacks
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0707/0706bb1.htm

More on the Wi-Fi security flaws at Boeing's secure border project:
http://blogs.govexec.com/techinsider/archives/2007/07/101_refresher_info_security_co.php
Jeppesen: The CIA's No-Questions-Asked Travel Agent: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0725,hentoff,76995,6.html

Boeing/Israeli spy towers aren't working at Arizona border: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/06/boeingisraeli-spy-towers-arent-working.html

Frankenstein Returns: Wackenhut takes over transporting migrants from Border Patrol: (Wackenhut is now Geo Group, but the transit buses which carry detained migrants in Arizona say "Wackenhut")
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Tools/PrintFriendly?url=%2Fgbase%2FCurrents%2FContent%3Foid%3Doid%253A95659

Halliburton's KBR $385 million to build migrant prisons:
http://robwire.com/?q=node/894

Copyright Censored News.

Arlo Looking Cloud given heroin before so-called video confession

Arlo Looking Cloud Interview
February 2004
Pennington County Jail Rapid City, South Dakota

by David Seals

"It was a set-up, Man, all the way," Arlo said, in the first of several 10-minute collect phone calls he made from the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City, where he's awaiting an April 23 mandatory life sentence for his February 6 conviction of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash in 1975. "Who were they covering up for? They're covering up for someone." "Who?" I asked. "I don't know." Later that night we were allowed a 20-minute face-to-face talk on telephones with a glass window between us, in Cellblock Two, booth 2B. We got into that all-important matter of "Who" again: for if he didn't kill her then who did? His Trial had shown a police videotape with him confessing to it, and several witnesses swore under oath he told them he'd done it. It was much less clear what he thought the role of John Graham was in all of it, as the U.S. Prosecution claims. Graham is a Canadian Native awaiting Extradition to South Dakota as a co-accused in the 1st degree homicide charge. "Yeah, so, they were covering up, but who were they covering up for, you mean?" I asked. "Well, I know who was covering up, my lawyer Tim Rensch. He was in collusion with the Government." We slowly got around to the damning police videotape that was shown in court, of an interrogation of Arlo in the Denver Police Dept. on March 27,2003, in which he confessed to it and said Graham pulled the trigger. What was noticeable about the tape, as I watched it in horror in the U.S. Federal Court in the 4-day trial Feb. 3-6, was that he was almost incoherent, and the police were asking a lot of leading questions. And he had no lawyer present. "What about the videotape?" He grinned at me behind the glass, a handsome fullblood Lakota with classic Sitting Bull good looks and long black hair. "I was drunk. They were giving me drugs and alcohol. Abe Alonzo, the big Denver cop who's going around acting like a hero, claiming he captured me, knew where I was every day. He met me at the liquor store every day and bought me the booze, and gave me drugs. I was really into Chiba. You know what Chiba is?" he grinned again, giving me a hard con's eye stare. "No." "Heroin. I loved that stuff. He was getting it for me. All I wanted." "So the videotape and confession ..." "They were all fucked up. I told Rensch that, but he didn't use it in court. Rensch didn't use a lot of questions I asked him to. I told him a lot of stuff but he didn't use it in the trial. I don't know why. I didn't even see a witness list until the last day, and they had a mock-trial back in December, December 16 I think, to practice everything, but I didn't even get a copy of the questionnaires. I didn't know anything. They didn't tell me anything. " And how did John Graham's name ever come up? "That's where Ecoffey perjured himself on the Stand." {Robert Ecoffey is the U.S. Marshall who originally brought Looking Cloud's and Graham's names out 10 years ago, and he testified at the trial} "He said Gladys Bissonnette and Al Gates first told him my name in 1994. No. No. It was Pat Janis, his close relative who told Ecoffey. Pat is married to Angie Begay. Angie Begay is a Navajo woman who was married to John Graham back in the 70s. Maybe it was some jealous woman's thing that got all this started, I'm not sure. There's always a lot of gossip around Pine Ridge and Indian Country. Angie was also married to Dennis Banks, did you know that? They had a daughter, Arrow Banks, she's a grown woman now." "Angie Begay also testified in the trial, didn't she? Yeah, she's the one who said she saw Annie Mae tied to a board and carrried out of the Denver house of Troy Lynn Yellow Wood." "Yeah." "But Troy Lynn herself testified she didn't see Annie tied up or anything. She left willingly on her own. And that's when you and John and Theda Clark took Annie to Pine Ridge?" "Yeah, I guess so. I didn't know her or John very well." He just shook his head like it was all bullshit. His lawyer said in court Arlo went to visit a friend Tony Red Cloud in Rapid City and wasn't even with Annie after they dropped her off at a safe house on Pine Ridge, 100 miles away from Rapid City. "I never saw her again, or even John Boy, I don't think. I'm not sure." "You never saw them again, after you dropped Annie off at a house on Pine Ridge?" "No." It was all pretty contradictory to what had come out in court, and he could see I was confused. "Richard Two Elk. Who's he? He has said for years you told him you and John killed her?" "I barely knew him." "He said he was your brother and you grew up on the reservation all your life?" Arlo laughed. "He's lying about everything. I barely knew him. We never grew up together or anything else. I'd run into him in Denver a few times at my Aunt's {Troy Lynn} and we'd go outside and smoke a joint and then go back inside. That was all. We never talked. You know, he was always going around tape-recording everybody, why doesn't he have a tape of me or anybody else? He doesn't know anything." "He testified and said he was with you when you talked to Annie's daughter on the phone, Denise Maloney from Nova Scotia, and told her you killed Annie, you and John Boy killed her?" Arlo shook his head. "I don't even remember that. I couldn't believe it when I heard it in court." "Two Elk said, and Denise testified too, that they called her. Paul Demain called her and said you wanted to talk to her, and he vouched for it and Demain vouched for Two Elk that he was Arlo's trusted brother. So Denise and her sister Debbie got on the phone." Arlo shook his head. "Set-up. Same with John Trudell {a longtime AIM leader who also testified Arlo told him he'd killed Annie}. Me and my Aunt went up to his hotel room {in Denver in 1988} and his bodyguard said, uh, we can go outside and smoke a doob. So we went down to the street, to his car or something. Trudell, you know, in court he looked to me like he was coming down from the morning's high. He was sweating and nervous." Arlo also wanted to tell me about several startling visits he'd had after the trial from FBI agents and other government lawyers. They wanted him to sign affidavits on other suspects but he refused to sign anything. He said he thought one of the lawyers, a tall man in a suit, was the notorious 1970s COINTELPRO double-agent Douglas Durham. "Are you sure it was him?" "Yeah, pretty sure. We'd all seen him around a lot in AIM. He was tall." It all went back, in the end, to that question of "Who". Why did the U.S. Attorney McMahon raise the issue of Leonard Peltier so much in the trial, putting irrelevant witnesses like Kamook Banks on the stand? She last saw Anna Mae Aquash alive in November 1975, well before even the Government said she was killed by Graham and Looking Cloud and Clark on December 12. But Kamook implicated Peltier all over again in the deaths of 2 FBI agents at a famous shootout on Pine Ridge a few months before Aquash turned up dead. The Trial inflamed local anit-Indian and anti-AIM feelings, including in the jury, by bringing up Peltier's name and the whole history of AIM's stormy involvement with the FBI. Local Indian sentiment in South Dakota pretty much agrees with Arlo Looking Cloud's feelings, that he didn't get a fair trial and that justice has not even begun to be served for Anna Mae. They point to the fact that the defense lawyer only called one witness for the defense, and that was an FBI agent; whereas the prosecution called 23 witnesses against Looking Cloud and Graham. Indians wonder why Theda Clark hasn't been charged and arrested too. They wonder why family members weren't called to testify about Arlo's character and heritage, and finally, why Arlo himself was not allowed to testify on his own behalf. "Rensch wouldn't let me talk, Man. He wouldn't let me testify at my own trial."
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They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one - They promised to take our land...and they took it. -- Chief Red Cloud Tunkashila, Let us stand Coalition strong in protection of our lands, our beliefs, our Sacred Spirituality, and our traditional Indigenous ways of life. We stand in strong support of Indigenous Rights and the Inherent Allodial title of Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota Lands. Let us reclaim what is ours and work diligently to preserve what we now have. End Dakota/Lakota/Nakota Ethnic Cleansing!This website was created to Honor of our Ancestors, our Traditions, Elders and Children, and to provide a future for our generations to come.That piece of red, white and blue cloth stands for a system and a country that does not honor it's own word...If it stood for honor and truth, it would remember our treaties and give them the appropriate place under international law. But it doesn't. It dishonors its own word and violates its treaties...In Honor of Tony Black Feather (Died August 11 2004)

Native Roots and Rhythms Concert, August 17, Santa Fe

CONTACT: Melissa L. SanchezP.O. Box 93095 Albuquerque, NM 87199

Phone: 505 620 8539 Fax: 505 212 0074
melissa@emergenceproductions.info

13th Annual Native Roots & Rhythms Festival

The Native Roots & Rhythms Festival is recognized as one of the nation’s top venues for contemporary and traditional Native American performing arts. Over the past 12 years, the event has provided an exciting variety of entertainment for regional, national and international audiences of all ages. Held during the prestigious Santa Fe Indian Market weekend, this year’s program continues the ambitious scope and caliber of previous productions. The event will showcase music, dance, storytelling, comedy, poetry and multimedia imagery. Between acts, film segments will be projected onto large on-stage screens. Please see the attached performers’ profiles sheet. Funded in part by the NM Department of Cultural Affairs


Show Information:
Date: Friday, August 17, 2007
Time: Gates open at 6:30 PM; Show at 7:30 PM
Where: Paolo Soleri Amphitheater, 1501 Cerrillos Rd. Santa, NM (Santa Fe Indian School campus)
Tickets: 505 988-1234, www.ticketssantafe.com, Lensic Box Office
Prices: $23 General Admission, $38 Reserved, $45 Premium Seating
- Students with ID $15 and 12 & under Free (must be accompanied by parent or guardian)
Web: www.nrrfestival.com Myspace: nativerootsandrhythms Email: info@nrrfestival.com
Flyers: down load flyers at www.nrrfestival.com

• NR&R is working with the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) to provide performers for the Santa Fe Plaza Stage during the days of Indian Market on Saturday, August 18 and Sunday, August 19.

• NR&R worked the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences & contributed to the 2001 establishment of a Native American category for the Grammy Awards.

• NR&R has featured over 500 of the best contemporary, traditional and mainstream performing artists of Native America, including Grammy Award and Native American Music Award winners/nominees: Black Eagle, R. Carlos Nakai Quartet, Buffy Ste. Marie, Joanne Shenandoah, Robert Mirabal, Bill Miller, Primeaux & Mike, Mary Youngblood, Randy Wood, Native Roots, Jim Boyd, and Keith Secola.


PERFORMER PROFILES

JAMES AND ERNIE
Performance: Comedy www.jamesandernie.com

The hardest working and hottest comedy act in Indian Country, James & Ernie are the first ever Native American comedy duo and they are “serious about comedy!” They entertain with musical antics, unique reservation humor, and an array of props. Along with sidesplitting comedy, the pair delivers a positive message promoting healthy lifestyle choices such as saying no to drugs, alcohol and domestic violence. Their material is an experience for all ages. James and Ernie stole the show at the American Indian Film Festival and the Native American Music Awards (Seminole Hard Rock Casino Hotel, FL). They have also performed at conferences, tribal fairs and casinos. James & Ernie have also released a DVD and star in the independent film “Milepost 398.”


AMOKURA
Music Style: Traditional Maori Song and Dance

AMOKURA is a traditional Maori performing arts group from Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud), otherwise known as New Zealand. AMOKURA is a pan-tribal group with members affiliating from many different tribes throughout Aotearoa. The group’s members also have an affiliation with AMO Inc., a national leadership development program inspired by the Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) Ambassador Program based in New Mexico. AMOKURA will be presenting a variety of traditional Maori performances including traditional chants, action songs, implement medleys and “haka.” Experience AMOKURA - Experience Aotearoa!


JOHN TRUDELL & BAD DOG
Musical Style: A combination of spoken word with traditional Native music and Rock & Roll. www.johntrudell.com

John Trudell is an acclaimed poet, national recording artist, actor and orator whose creative work is rooted in an indigenous perspective and integrates contemporary themes ranging from love to politics to the environment. Trudell released his first album, Tribal Voice, in 1983 and then joined with legendary Kiowa guitarist Jesse Ed Davis to produce three other albums. Following Davis ’s untimely death, Trudell formed his current band and has released six additional works. His last two albums, Blue Indians and Bone Days, were executive produced by Jackson Browne and Angelina Jolie, respectively. Trudell will release a new album in the summer of 2007 entitled Madness and The Moremes. In addition to his music career, Trudell has published two books of poetry and appeared in a number of major motion pictures, including Thunderheart and Smoke Signals. He lectures throughout the year at colleges and universities nationally on his philosophy of life and coherent thinking. The documentary TRUDELL, which premiered in 2005, tells the story of John’s life and evolution from an activist with Indian of All Tribes and the American Indian Movement to an artist today.

DISCOGRAPHY
“DNA, Descendant now Ancestor” (spoken word only), 2002
“Bone Days”, 2002
“Blue Indians”, 1999
Box set collection of digitally re-mastered cassettes from 1983-1992, including “Tribal Voice”, “But This Isn’t El Salvador”, and the original “AKA Graffiti Man”, 2003

DARREN GEFFRE
Musical Style: Pop/Rock www.darrengeffre.com

Darren Geffre, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe, is a top-40 pop/rock artist from South Dakota whose stage presence is distinguished by vibrant and endless energy! Notable music achievements include: A 2001 Native American Music Award Best Independent Recording nomination for the single "If I Ever”, 2003 First Americans in the Arts "Outstanding Musical Performance", "Uncivilized" album has sold over 9,000 copies, resulting in a 2004 entry level Grammy nominations for "Best New Artist" and "Album of the Year”, 2004 "Award of Distinction" Indian Summerfest Music Video Award and nominee "Best Pop album". Notable interviews include: LA's Pacifica Radio, NPR (National Public Radio), National Native News, The American Indian Cable Network (Comcast), and XM Satellite Radio. Also on his talent resume: featured in Men's Health Magazine, Native Peoples Magazine, APTN (Aboriginal People's Television Network), TNT's "Into the West" and ABC Family's "Wildfire" pilot. In 2003, Darren's music landed #1 on 9 different CMJ College Radio stations with radio play on 180 radio stations across the United States and Canada. Currently, Darren is working on a new album with artist and producer “Def Jef” who has previously worked with artists such as Nas, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac Shakur.

DISCOGRAPHY
“Uncivilized”, produced by Pete Amato and Duncan Pain, 2004
“Audiobiography”, was produced by Tim Andersen and Def Jef, 2006

TAMARA PODEMSKI
Musical Style: A world-music fusion within the folk/rock genre www.tamarapodemski.com

WINNER OF 2 ABORIGINAL MUSIC AWARDS: BEST FEMALE ARTIST & SONGWRITER
WINNER OF THE SPECIAL JURY PRIZE FOR ACTING AT THE SUNDANCE FESTIVAL

After starring in the Broadway production of RENT, Tamara Podemski launched her singing career by fronting the Los Angeles-based, World Music band, SPIRIT NATION, as the lead singer and Ojibway-lyricist. In 2001, their album, "Winter Moons," was released internationally under the Triloka/Karuna Music label, distributed by BMG, and later by KOCH Entertainment.In 2003, Tamara recorded, SPIRIT VOICES under the pseudonym Ceshia Anaquod, this time writing both the music and Ojibway lyrics. The album was released worldwide under the Somerset Entertainment label. Launching her own record label in 2005, Tamara wrote and co-produced her first video, "Meegwetch," in cooperation with BravoFACT!, and had famed Canadian director, Bruce McDonald, bring her vision to the screen, garnering several awards.Tamara always infuses spirituality, passion and pride into her music. She challenges her audiences to look in the mirror and question themselves. Her lyrics provoke, her voice empowers, her presence on stage inspires. In a time of social unrest, distorted media images and human disconnectedness, Tamara is an important voice to be heard.Discography”Winter Moons”, Spirit Nation (2002 Karuna Music)”Spirit Voices”, Ceshia Anaquod [pseudonym] (2003 Reflections)”Tamara”, Tamara Podemski (2005 Mukwa Music)

FILM CLIP
“Four Sheets to the Wind” A 2007 Sundance Film Festival feature by Director/screenwriter Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek)
When Cufé Smallhill finds his father dead, he keeps his promise and sinks his body in the family pond. In the midst of mourning and organizing a phony traditional funeral to satisfy the community, Cufé realizes that he must explore life outside the reservation. His sister invites him to visit her in the big city of Tulsa, opening the door to a world of possibilities. Infused with a warm sense of humor, director Sterlin Harjo’s delightful first feature creates a rich Oklahoma atmosphere with easy country rhythms, while Cody Lightning and Tamara Podemski (winner of the Special Jury Prize for Acting) give compelling performances.
The Pueblos of New Mexico
Member’s of the 19 Pueblo’s of New Mexico will begin the night with a grand entry colorful presentation, welcoming visitors to the Native Roots & Rhythms Festival, their homelands and the State of New Mexico! The beautiful Pueblo song and dance presentation will be followed by a traditional Pueblo “throw” in which “goodies” will be thrown to audience members. A Pueblo “throw” is a form of celebration through giving.

Tehran Times: Leonard Peltier, Remembering victims of reign of terror

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=7/2/2007&Cat=2&Num=003
Remembering the victims of the reign of terror
By Leonard Peltier
For the past thirty-two years supporters have gathered at Oglala to honor the lives that were lost on June 26, 1975 and in the “reign of terror”. This year will be the eighth year that the Oglala Commemoration Committee has sponsored the gathering. For those of us who were unable to physically attend the gathering at Oglala, we each honor and remember this day in our own special way. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all the victims from the “reign of terror”. In Memory Of:
Frank Clearwater, Buddy LaMont, Sandra Wounded Foot, Leo Wilcox, Clarence Cross, Priscilla White Plume, Julius Bad Heart Bull, Melvin Spider, Philip Black Elk, Aloysius Long Soldier, Phillip Little Crow, Allison Fast Horse, Edward Means, Jr., Edward Standing Soldier, Roxeine Roark, Dennis Lecompte, Jackson Washington Cutt, Robert Reddy, Delphiene Crow Dog, Elaine Wagner, Floyd Bianas, Yvette Loraine Lone Hill, Leon L. Swift Bird, Martin Montileaux, Stacy Cortier, Edith Eagle Hawk, Jeanette Bissonette, Richard Eagle, Hilda R. Good Buffalo, Jancita Eagle Deer, Ben Sitting Up, Kenneth Little, Leah Spotted Elk, Joseph Stuntz, James Brings Yellow, Andrew Paul Stewart, Randy Hunter, Howard Blue Bird, Jim Little, Olivia Bianas, Janice Black Bear, Michelle Tobacco, Carl Plenty Arrows, Frank LaPointe, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, Lydia Cut Grass, Byron Desersa, Lena R. Slow Bear, Hobart Horse, Cleveland Reddest, Betty Jo Dubray, Marvin Two Two, Julia Pretty Hips, Sam Afraid of Bear, Kevin Hill, and Betty Means. You will always be in my prayers. Do what you can, where you can, from where you stand and -- to quote Sitting Bull – let’s see what kind of nation we can make for our children. I don’t say I love you easily but I want you to know that I love you -- my heart is with you and never, never, never give up!
Leonard Peltier # 89637-132 U.S.P. Lewisburg,
P.O. Box 1000, Lewisburg, PA USA 17837
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
www.leonardpeltier.net