Censorship and the heroes of our generation

Along with the loss of their jobs, many people who provide information for Censored News have been hungry, homeless, sick, arrested, jailed and beaten over the past two years.

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

In today's column, Roberto Rodriquez describes the blatant racism by Lou Dobbs on CNN. In a slightly more subtle form of manipulation and control, Indian Country Today has a large ad for CIA Clandestine Services -- CIA spies -- on its website today. The ad has been revolving there for months. This means that ICT is funded by the CIA.
When I was a staff reporter for Indian Country Today, the managing editor in 2005 demanded that I not write about "grassroots people or the genocide of American Indians." I continued to do so and was terminated in 2006. But, before I was terminated, my articles were censored and the wording changed, over my objections. The non-Indian staff members responsible continued at the newspaper over the past years in various positions.
Today, unless one reads a great deal on the Internet, because of the censorship, it is possible to remain unaware of current events.
The most underreported news includes the Zapatistas Digna Rabia gatherings in Chiapas; American Indians support for Palestinians; the discovery of US-made white phosphorus munitions used by Israel on Palestinians; the digging up of the graves of O'odham ancestors, 69 at one site alone, in Arizona for the US/Mexico border wall and the secret removal of the remains of O'odham ancestors by Boeing while constructing the border wall on O'odham land.
The rapes, murders and drug smuggling carried out by US Border Agents on the US border are among the most concealed facts, even in the alternative media, because the crimes are concealed. (Although dozens of US military soldiers, with a police officer and prison guard were convicted and sentenced in Arizona for smuggling cocaine last year, border agents carried out the sting and were not exposed.)
The smuggling of weapons into Mexico, which fuels the current drug violence, is also censored. Ultimately, it is the people in the US who buy the drugs and provide the weapons for this wave of violence. The US even trained some of the most brutal murderers in this drug war, the Zetas, formerly as US Special Forces. The privatization of US prisons, and media fueled racism toward migrants, has resulted in profiteering for politicians and corporations like GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and resulted in abuse and murders in prisons.
The issues in Mohawk Nation News are widely censored, including land theft and oppression by a wide range of security forces. The exposure of mass graves of Indian children at Canadian residential schools was among the most censored articles. The hoax of carbon credits, to enrich the World Bank and corporations, is also censored.
Another censored fact was that Leonard Peltier was recently beaten by a gang in a Pennsylvania prison, and transferred. The question of why so many American Indians in some Indian Nations are living in poverty, while millions of dollars are pouring into their casinos, is largely censored. Peabody Coal, along with a long list of corporations in collusion with the Navajo Nation government, continues to produce disease and pollution, even in the area of the Navajos' place of origin, Dinetah, in what is now New Mexico. On Western Shoshone land, and around the world, Barrick Gold, and other coal, gold, silver and copper mining corporations, continue to oppress the people and destroy Indigenous lands and water. In Guatemala, there have been assassinations, and in New Guinea, rapes and murders of villagers.
To expose all of these issues, many people have lost their jobs and positions, including Kevin Annett, a minister in Vancouver who continues to expose the murders and mass graves in church residential schools. In the US, Native Americans have been removed from their positions on tribal councils for demanding justice at the US border, while others have been detained and threatened by border agents and tribal police.
Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and Katenies, MNN editor, two Mohawk grandmothers, were beaten at the Canadian border by border agents and Kahentinetha suffered a heart attack. Others continue to struggle for justice, like Angelita Ramon, Tohono O'odham, whose 18-year-old son Bennett Patricio, Jr., was ran over and killed by the US Border Patrol in Arizona.
Along with the loss of their jobs, many people who provide information for Censored News have been hungry, homeless, sick, arrested, jailed and beaten over the past two years.
They don't receive a salary from CNN, but they remain the heroes of our generation.

Censored articles by Brenda Norrell, 2004 -- 2006:
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/

Photo: At San Xavier on Tohono O'odham land, crosses in memory of migrants who died in the desert. Walkers from Tucson to San Xavier included supporters of Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths, Humane Borders and Samaritans. Photo Brenda Norrell

Rodriguez: 'Face of the New American Bigot, Part II'

Face of the New American Bigot, Part II

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez


In writing about CNN’s Lou Dobbs and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently – readers rightly asked about why CNN continues to carry an obsessed bigot in its daily lineup?
The question is the same for other media outlets that have for years carried Dobbs and others whose careers seemed to be based on an obsession with immigration (illegal or otherwise), the border and the Spanish language.
Unquestionably, it is an unhealthy obsession, one in which during difficult times leads to un upsurge in hate crimes, discrimination, harassment and scapegoating. In this case, the scapegoats are Mexicans primarily, but also Central and South Americans. Many of those
targeted are in fact either legally here or U.S. born citizens.
This is not news to CNN. Virtually every media outlet, every media watch dog group and every human rights organization has noted Dobbs’s obsession.
The Southern Poverty Law Center – the premier human rights organization that monitors hate nationally, regularly features Dobbs (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intpro.jsp). It regularly questions his incendiary work, his accuracy, and his penchant for relying on white supremacist sources. They have also written to CNN’s top management about this. (Incidentally, the SPLC has been reporting a major increase in hate crimes against Latinos every year since 2000).
The media watchdog, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) – which is dedicated to challenging media bias and censorship – regularly Dobb’s daily obsession, always noting his brazen xenophobia, his habitual misreporting and his reliance on an all-star cast of
extremist sources (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=100).
Recently, another media watchdog, Media Matters for America(http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/immigration), featured and documented more of Dobbs’s fabrications. On Jan. 29, Dobbs falsely claimed that “illegal aliens” would be able to take advantage of the massive economic stimulus bill; the bill specifically precludes this
from happening. On Feb 4, Dobbs’s nightly report asserted the same about the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), signed that day by President Obama. The banner during his newscast read: “Healthcare for Illegal Aliens.” CNN correspondent Lisa Sylvester
reported that the SCHIP would make it likely that “illegal aliens” would be able to access the program. But as FAIR noted: “The SCHIP bill also explicitly states in Section 605 that ‘[n]othing in this Act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not lawfully residing
in the United States’:”
CNN’s president Jonathan Klein has long been aware of Dobbs’s obsession and his habitual misstatements and misreporting, telling the New York Times (3/29/06), "Lou's show is not a harbinger of things to come at CNN,” adding that he is “one of a kind." Yet, CNN – “the most
trusted name in news” – has continued to carry Dobbs and has made available its vast financial resources, including the use of its “trusted” regular reporters to help push his xenophobic agenda.
One has to wonder whether CNN would tolerate a show on crime and welfare by Dobbs that daily featured black welfare queens and black street hoodlums? Dobbs’s defense would be that he is not concerned with race, but rather, cheats and criminals. Would CNN carry a show by
Dobbs that daily railed against Jews for cheating and embezzling Americans out of their hard-earned dollars? The claim would be that the concern is with illegality, regardless of who was doing the cheating and embezzling. What about a daily show dedicated to the extermination of American Indians… or that daily denigrated women or the LBGT community? (Witness what just one racial episode – the chimpanzee/Obama cartoon – at the New York Daily Post (2/19/09) – has rightfully generated.
If Dobb’s obsession is transparent, why then indeed do CNN and other media outlets carry his show? Why does the media in general do the same with other documented hate-mongers?
The answer is two-fold. “Illegal aliens” are not considered full human beings. Officially, there are no [racially identified] faces associated with them, though in reality, we know that thanks to the
bigots in our midst, illegal alien is code for brown, which generally equals Mexicans. Similar to the debate over the official language in this country, it is a coded debate about the racial and cultural future of this nation.
Secondly, with its competition with the “fair & balanced” FOX Network, one can only ascertain that CNN’s decision to continue to carry Dobbs, tells us volumes about its ethics and responsibilities. They apparently mean little in the face of profits. Yet with the 2008
elections now over, perhaps it can soon regain the trust it has otherwise earned.
Rodriguez can be reached at XColumn@email.com
* CNN can be reached at (404) 827-1500 or on the web at:
www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?39

Indigenous Alliance without Borders: March to challenge Sheriff Arpaio

Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras Statement of Support For the National Human Rights March To Challenge Sheriff Joe Arpaio



Saturday, February 28th
Phoenix, Arizona

By Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras
Photo by Brenda Norrell/Arpaio protest in Tucson 2008

The Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras joins and stands strongly in support of all the people and organizers of the National Human Rights March to challenge the Human Rights abuses of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. We believe that the militarization and border enforcement policies that have been inflicted upon the territories of our eight Nations of Indigenous Peoples divided by the US-Mexico border have helped nurture virulent racist nativism in America, and politicians have used immigration as a wedge issue that has degraded respect for the civil and human rights of us all.
The actions of Sheriff Arpaio extend the militarization of the border to the entirety of the metropolis of Maricopa County, where the Sheriff's Posse acts as an "uber police" force, overriding jurisdictions of civil government and community control. We understand that the 287(g) Agreement now in place with the Sheriff of Maricopa County and the federal government has been implemented in violation of the constitutional right of Equal Protection and with blatant discriminatory enforcement tactics by Sheriff Arpaio, and therefore demand that the 287(g) Agreement be cancelled immediately.
We join voices as well with members of the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives to call for federal investigation on the systematic practices and procedures of discriminatory enforcement that Sheriff Arpaio has implemented throughout Maricopa County, and that such violations be addressed in the appropriate judicial venues and courts of both civil and human rights. To this end, we call to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Professor James Anaya of the University of Arizona, to take into account these procedures of federal investigation now under way, and articulate effective measures to address the international regional and historical context of the issue as part of a pattern of systemic human rights violations driven by transnational government economic policies in North America, in reference to the regime of NAFTA.

Stop Arpaio!
The actions of Sheriff Arpaio and his posse have declared open season and war on all People of Color, including documented and undocumented immigrants, and U.S. Citizens. Public safety and public health have suffered as a result. This situation must brought to an end immediately.
We call upon the Maricopa County Government, citizens and politicians to stop the perpetrators of hate and fear that use anti-immigration legislation and border enforcement policies as a tool to discriminate against People of Color and terrorize our communities! Sheriff Joe Arpaio must be stopped! His racist acts deserve Public Condemnation because they polarize Race Relations in Arizona and undermine the stability and integrity of our regional economy in the state.
Indigenous Peoples and the Border
Across the borderlands, anti-immigrant issues have also profoundly affected Indigenous Peoples. The cultural and religious ties between our Indigenous Nations and communities on both sides of the US-Mexico border precede the imposition of the international boundary between the two countries by millennia. These ties present a cultural mandate that must continue and will continue in spite of the great difficulties of today's political climate and economic realities.
The vast majority of immigrants without documents coming to the US are Indigenous Peoples of the Abya Yala [the Americas] from Mexico, Guatemala and other South American countries. Indigenous people living on or near the border from Texas to California and from Coahuila to Baja California, are harassed, subjected to high-speed chases, abuse of state authority, and suffer daily violations of human and civil rights with impunity.
Southern Indigenous border issues are neglected or ignored by politicians and by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Indigenous sovereignty and rights of self-determination are continuously violated by restrictive and discriminatory border crossing enforcement policies.
Southern Indigenous Border Rights and Justice should be dealt with as a viable border enforcement issue in order to ensure policy change that will respect indigenous rights of mobility and passage, preservation of language and cultural rights and indigenous family's unification.
The Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras, founded in 1997, was created by and for Indigenous Peoples to address border issues of the southern US border with Mexico. The Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras consists of individual tribal members from the eight southern border indigenous nations with relatives in Mexico. We seek to increase public awareness regionally and nationally on how anti-immigrant legislation and border enforcement policies daily affect the lives of Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous Rights and Immigrant Rights are HUMAN RIGHTS!

WE DEMAND THAT ARPAIO BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE!
HIS WILD WEST TACTICS ARE UNACCEPTABLE!
A Nation that is governed based on the Rule of Law Must Respect Human Rights!
! Human Rights do not need Documents !
******************************
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13th, 2007
Article 36
1. Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.
2. States, in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, shall take effective measures to facilitate the exercise and ensure the implementation of this right.

Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras
Contact: Jose R. Matus, Project Director Tel: (520) 979-2125
P.O. Box 826 Tucson, AZ 85702
http://www.indigenasinfronteras.org/

Links:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/declaration.html
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/rapporteur/
http://www.tonatierra.org/
http://www.puenteaz.org/
http://www.cumbrecontinentalindigena.org/
Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras: Statement of Support - National Human Rights March
Sat February 28
Phoenix

Amnesty: US-made white phosphorus weapons found in Gaza

US/ISRAELI WAR CRIMES IN GAZA:
Our research team recently found evidence of U.S.-made weapons in Gaza, including the misuse of white phosphorus munitions.

Urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to immediately call for an investigation into Israel’s use of U.S. arms in Gaza.

Investigate potential war crimes in Gaza
By Amnesty International
A new report released just hours ago reveals that U.S.-made white phosphorus artillery shells among other U.S. weapons were found throughout Gaza. When white phosphorus munitions are used in densely-populated civilian areas as Israel has, it violates international humanitarian law’s prohibition on indiscriminate attacks and amounts to a war crime.

In light of this new finding, we are urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to immediately call for: an investigation into Israel’s use of U.S. arms in Gaza
a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel and to urge the United Nations to impose an arms embargo on all parties in the conflict

Samia Salman Al-Manay'a, 16 years old, was asleep in her home in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, when a phosphorus shell landed on the first floor of the house on January10th. Ten days later, from her hospital bed, she spoke to our delegation.

"The pain is piercing. It's as though a fire is burning in my body. It's too much for me to bear. In spite of all the medicine they are giving me the pain is still so strong."

Since 2001, the U.S. has been the largest supplier of arms to Israel. The U.S. has also provided considerable funding each year for Israel to buy arms despite U.S. legislation that restricts such aid to consistently gross human rights violators. Since 2002 Israel received over $21 billion in U.S. military and security assistance. Put simply, Israel's military intervention in the Gaza Strip has been equipped to a large extent by US-supplied weapons, munitions and military equipment paid for with U.S. taxpayers’ money.

Even after the start of the current conflict and reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza, U.S. authorities continued to authorize large shipments of U.S. munitions, including white phosphorus munitions, to Israel.

In January, Amnesty called for a suspension of all arms transfers to Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups until there is no longer a serious risk that such equipment will be used for violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses. The Department of State should lead the call for accountability. If we suspect our weapons are being used in attacks that are indiscriminately killing civilians, we must act.
Urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to immediately call for an investigation into Israel’s use of U.S. arms in Gaza and a suspension of military aid.

Last month you called for an independent investigation into all parties involved in the conflict in Gaza. We are happy to report that your voice was heard. Over 45,000 messages were sent to Secretary Clinton and UN Representative Susan Rice, who highlighted the importance of an investigation. Additionally, three Members of Congress, including the highest ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Gaza and witnessed firsthand the humanitarian devastation.


Sincerely,
Larry Cox
Executive Director
Amnesty International USA