Bear Gonzales | 6:59pm May 10 |
Here is some info on Todd Kincannon (The Republican Racist). Thought you might like to read it.
 | Jesus' General: Adding to the GOP's Enemies List
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| Marcia Lane | 1:37pm May 11 |
Two important updates from Kevin Annett and ITCCS -
An important radio show and a recent sabotage of our communications
1. Tomorrow, Saturday May 12: Banishing and Occupying a Criminal Church - A special report from the front lines, on Hidden from History: Blog Talk radio program, 1 pm (pacific) 4 pm (eastern), 9 pm in Ireland and England (GMT).
Access the program at www.blogtalkradio.com/hiddenfromhistory or call in at 347-857-3524.
, 1 pm Pacific
John Deegan, Gerry O'Donovan, Dave O'Brien and Mary Lawlor from ITCCS Ireland and ACCAW ( Anti Catholic Church Activists Worldwide) will be discussing the results of their May 4th meeting with Archbishop Dermot Martin in Ireland. Church rape and terror of children, mass graves near former Magdalene Laundries, and bringing the church to trial will be discussed.
Our other guest will be Peter Yellow Quill, an Ojibway Lakota Elder and former Chief of the Ojibway Nation's Long Plain Reserve in Manitoba, Canada. He will discuss recent police attacks on Ojibway youth on his reserve, and a court challenge he's bringing against Canada for land theft and genocide. He is also a survivor of two Manitoba Indian residential Schools and a vocal critic of the state funded "Truth and Reconciliation Commission".
The panel will include host Kevin Annett, co-host Russ Letica, Bill Annett, and Host and Producer Marcie Lane.
Tune in and help reclaim the world and ourselves.
Kevin Annett Online Radio - Hidden from historywww.blogtalkradio.com/hiddenfromhistory
May 12, 2012 - and every second Saturday following
2. Email sabotage: Two days ago, Kevin Annett's main email account -kevin_annett@hotmail.com - was sabotaged and can no longer be accessed by Kevin. From now on, please disregard that account and replace it with hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com , which is henceforth Kevin's main email account.
For confirmation of this change, contact Kevin in person at 250-591-4573 in Canada. Please notify your networks and adjust any listings you have displayed of Kevin's contact information.
ITCCS postings will continue to come to you through this yahoo account. Another important communique regarding Kevin's and ITCCS schedule of events will be forthcoming.
Communique from ITCCS International (Brussels)
11 May, 2012
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com - and phone messages can be left for him at 250-591-4573 (Canada).
An important radio show and a recent sabotage of our communications
1. Tomorrow, Saturday May 12: Banishing and Occupying a Criminal Church - A special report from the front lines, on Hidden from History: Blog Talk radio program, 1 pm (pacific) 4 pm (eastern), 9 pm in Ireland and England (GMT).
Access the program at www.blogtalkradio.com/
, 1 pm Pacific
John Deegan, Gerry O'Donovan, Dave O'Brien and Mary Lawlor from ITCCS Ireland and ACCAW ( Anti Catholic Church Activists Worldwide) will be discussing the results of their May 4th meeting with Archbishop Dermot Martin in Ireland. Church rape and terror of children, mass graves near former Magdalene Laundries, and bringing the church to trial will be discussed.
Our other guest will be Peter Yellow Quill, an Ojibway Lakota Elder and former Chief of the Ojibway Nation's Long Plain Reserve in Manitoba, Canada. He will discuss recent police attacks on Ojibway youth on his reserve, and a court challenge he's bringing against Canada for land theft and genocide. He is also a survivor of two Manitoba Indian residential Schools and a vocal critic of the state funded "Truth and Reconciliation Commission".
The panel will include host Kevin Annett, co-host Russ Letica, Bill Annett, and Host and Producer Marcie Lane.
Tune in and help reclaim the world and ourselves.
Kevin Annett Online Radio - Hidden from historywww.blogtalkradio.
May 12, 2012 - and every second Saturday following
2. Email sabotage: Two days ago, Kevin Annett's main email account -kevin_annett@hotmail.com - was sabotaged and can no longer be accessed by Kevin. From now on, please disregard that account and replace it with hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.
For confirmation of this change, contact Kevin in person at 250-591-4573 in Canada. Please notify your networks and adjust any listings you have displayed of Kevin's contact information.
ITCCS postings will continue to come to you through this yahoo account. Another important communique regarding Kevin's and ITCCS schedule of events will be forthcoming.
Communique from ITCCS International (Brussels)
11 May, 2012
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.
 | Kevin Annett Online Radio by Hiddenfromhistory
Telling the Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. Host: Kevin Annett and Ru... |
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Thanks for all you do!  @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Cherokee Link Newsletter ****************************** Osiyo, This weekend we should take the time to do something special for those women who helped mold us into who we have become today, even if it is by simply saying to them, “Thanks mom. I could not have manage this without you.” Oh, and flowers wouldn’t hurt either. I hear most moms enjoy flowers. After Mother’s Day, you can catch up on our nation’s progress by watching the tribal General Council and Committee meetings being held this coming Monday, May 14. To view posted Agendas, meeting times, and to watch them online go to: http://www.cherokee.org/ Perhaps you would like to submit that 18 X 24 acrylic or oil on canvas masterpiece you made for Mom to the NRCS 2012 American Indian Heritage Month Poster Contest. Any mom would be proud to have their child’s work move from the wall to potentially receive national recognition. Native American Artists of any age must submit their posters by May 25th, 2012. More details at: http://www.cherokee.org/ The end of the school year is here and now is a great time to start planning for your child’s future. The Cherokee Nation Foundation is now accepting applications for the first annual Cherokee College Preparatory Institute. Eligible applicants must be upcoming high school juniors, maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA, and attend a one-weekend leadership session held in the spring. The deadline for applications is Thursday, May 31. For more information or to apply, call 918-207-0950 or visit: www.cherokeenationfoundation. Cherokee Nation P.O. Box 948 Tahlequah, OK 74465 918 453-5000 ****************************** ********Cherokee Nation News***************** ****************************** Contestants Sought to Compete for Miss Cherokee Title For more than 50 years Miss Cherokee has served as a cultural icon and a goodwill ambassador on behalf of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation is currently accepting Miss Cherokee Leadership Competition entries from young women interested in representing their tribe and earning money for their education. http://www.cherokee.org/ Cherokee Nation seeks talented Native Artists for Gallery The Cherokee Arts Center is currently seeking talented Native artists who would like to display their works in the center’s gallery in downtown Tahlequah. http://www.cherokee.org/ Cherokee Nation Recognizing Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day; Building Resources The Cherokee Nation is joining more than 1,100 communities across the country in recognizing National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day Wednesday, May 9, 2012, to highlight the importance of positive mental health for children. http://www.cherokee.org/ Registration Department Closed Monday; Jay Visit Rescheduled The Cherokee Nation Registration Department will be closed from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday and is rescheduling its site visit to Jay due to funeral services for long-time Tribal Registrar Lela Ummerteskee. http://www.cherokee.org/ ****************************** ******Other Links of Interest******* ****************************** Games - http://www.cherokee.org/ Community Calendar - http://calendars.cherokee. RSS Feed - http://www.cherokee.org/ Podcasts - http://www.cherokee.org/ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
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| Marcia Lane | 7:53pm May 16 |
When Seeing Leads to More than Believing
By Kevin D. Annett
What I held in my hand yesterday caused me to flee from the University of British Columbia library, and seek solace in the deep forest that surrounds the campus where I grew up, and where I have discovered the unimaginable.
It was an unusual reaction, for I had encountered much worse over the years. But after seeing the document, something snapped in me and made nothing else possible than to rush to the woods, fall to the bountiful soil behind a hidden tree tangled in moss, and dig my hands desperately into mother earth and sob like I had not done since I was a child.
I lay there for some time, after the tears were spent, and gradually the quiet bird song and sunlight merged with a perfect aroma I had not breathed for so long: the forest loam itself, and its rich, musky decomposition so alive and sweet.
I hugged the ground and buried my face in our good earth, and felt suddenly that my own corrosion from the long and hard years could be the source of something more than personal agony. For I turned over just then and scribbled on a piece of paper,
My pain and suffering is the nursing log out of which so many and so much will grow.
I lay on my back, wonderfully calm and spent, and looked again at the photocopied document I had unearthed that morning from the government archives in Koerner Library’s microfilm section.
It read,
“Department of Indian Affairs, Dental Report: St. Paul’s Catholic Indian School, Squamish Mission Reservation, May 1924”.
And beneath that title was listed the names of fifty six children who had had their teeth extracted without painkiller by Dr. E. Fraser Allen of Vancouver.
No anesthesia.
Matilda Miranda was seven years old, and six of her teeth were yanked from her jaw without anesthesia. Theresa George was eight, and five of her teeth were similarly pulled. Leonard Rodrigues, age 10, Ralph Atkins, age nine, Doreen Thomas, age nine: all denied painkiller. Over 80% of the group of fifty six “students” at St. Paul’s Indian school were tortured thus.
Dr. Allen was paid $20.54 for his efforts, including the cost of $1.50 for his tools and amalgam dressing. It took him about a half hour to yank out all those little teeth, according to the good doctor’s report of May 7, sent to C. C. Perry, the local Indian Agent.
That meant he yanked out a tooth, on average, every ten seconds: non stop.
Harry Wilson never opened his mouth much when he first spoke to me, in the fall of 1997, because his teeth were such a mess.
“Naw, I never go to a dentist” he explained sadly. “They never gave us painkiller at residential school, when they pulled our teeth”.
Harry’s teeth were yanked over forty years after the same torture was performed by Dr. Allen on the St. Paul’s children: a different school, and a Catholic one, but identical to the practice inflicted on Harry at a United Church Indian residential school in Port Alberni in 1967.
Harriett Nahanee had the same story, at the same school in 1946. So did Vera Little, at the Anglican school in Alert Bay in 1953. And the husband of Alia MacKenzie-Point at the Chehalis reservation in 1969.
I can’t hate Dr. Allen, or any of the other specialists who have ripped the teeth and the innocence from children with the full sanction of church and state for so many years. For like you and I, these torturers learned quickly how to numb themselves to the screams and the blood in order to get on with their job.
That struck me with a sudden clarity, alone in the forest, after my own tears had washed away my numbness, and I began, as always, to grapple with how to share this new evidence with the world in a way that would make others do something more than believe that the crimes did happen, and still happen. And yet I knew that, as with all the other evidence of these grisly acts done to aboriginal children, very few people would want to know the horrible truth, let alone dare to do anything about it.
Tempted by the old despair, I stared just then at what I had scribbled moments before: My pain and suffering is the nursing log out of which so many and so much will grow. And then an answer echoed in me, from something Alice Miller had written once:
We can never find empathy for the suffering of others until we have faced and embraced the pain done to ourselves.
I’ve often noticed how the church goers who trudge past our offered leaflets on a Sunday morning bear the same look, when confronted by what their church did, and what their collection money helps to cover up: people who are resigned. Batter someone enough, and they become that way.
We are all so weary of the battering we have each endured since infancy, and yet are so incapable of feeling we can do anything to stop it. Even the very life-giving sky above seems to mock life itself these days, stained by vile chemical trails spewed by corporate and military madmen far beyond our reach. What can even our best integrity and courage do in the face of the enormity of the violence we face?
Harry Wilson, and his counterparts Matilda and Theresa and all the other helpless little victims, knew the same despair, and some of them found a way to endure. And like Harry, who was able to tell what happened to him, when my own tears freely flowed the other day I found it easier to face the truth and find a light where there shouldn’t have been one. So Alice Miller must be on to something.
When we see our lives and our worlds for what they are, and can say so, we gain a power over what seemed like fate or irresistible injustice: sort of like naming a demon and calling it to leave a possessed soul. That’s the power of knowing our true history, individually and as a whole, and not denying the darkest moments, but describing them out loud, for what they are.
Rising up from the forested earth, I felt like a demon had indeed left me, and a warm surge of love filled me for those long dead and violated Indian children who still wait for justice. That kind of love doesn’t allow apathy or timid excuses: it does not rest until right is done. It was blessing beyond expression that day to feel the old flame arise in me again, born from my own grief, and theirs.
I ran joyfully from the woods on the sunlit path towards the bus stop, armed again with my being and the documented truth in my bag, and I knew that the time to act is always present in us. And from somewhere, the words of Rabbi Hillel sounded then:
If I am not for myself, then who will be?
If I am only for myself, then what am I?
If not now, when?
Torture survivor Harry Wilson (left) and Kevin Annett, 1997, Vancouver
..............................................................
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
See this introductory video on The Canadian Holocaust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPIh-267fg&feature=related
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com - and phone messages can be left for him at 250-591-4573 (Canada).
By Kevin D. Annett
What I held in my hand yesterday caused me to flee from the University of British Columbia library, and seek solace in the deep forest that surrounds the campus where I grew up, and where I have discovered the unimaginable.
It was an unusual reaction, for I had encountered much worse over the years. But after seeing the document, something snapped in me and made nothing else possible than to rush to the woods, fall to the bountiful soil behind a hidden tree tangled in moss, and dig my hands desperately into mother earth and sob like I had not done since I was a child.
I lay there for some time, after the tears were spent, and gradually the quiet bird song and sunlight merged with a perfect aroma I had not breathed for so long: the forest loam itself, and its rich, musky decomposition so alive and sweet.
I hugged the ground and buried my face in our good earth, and felt suddenly that my own corrosion from the long and hard years could be the source of something more than personal agony. For I turned over just then and scribbled on a piece of paper,
My pain and suffering is the nursing log out of which so many and so much will grow.
I lay on my back, wonderfully calm and spent, and looked again at the photocopied document I had unearthed that morning from the government archives in Koerner Library’s microfilm section.
It read,
“Department of Indian Affairs, Dental Report: St. Paul’s Catholic Indian School, Squamish Mission Reservation, May 1924”.
And beneath that title was listed the names of fifty six children who had had their teeth extracted without painkiller by Dr. E. Fraser Allen of Vancouver.
No anesthesia.
Matilda Miranda was seven years old, and six of her teeth were yanked from her jaw without anesthesia. Theresa George was eight, and five of her teeth were similarly pulled. Leonard Rodrigues, age 10, Ralph Atkins, age nine, Doreen Thomas, age nine: all denied painkiller. Over 80% of the group of fifty six “students” at St. Paul’s Indian school were tortured thus.
Dr. Allen was paid $20.54 for his efforts, including the cost of $1.50 for his tools and amalgam dressing. It took him about a half hour to yank out all those little teeth, according to the good doctor’s report of May 7, sent to C. C. Perry, the local Indian Agent.
That meant he yanked out a tooth, on average, every ten seconds: non stop.
Harry Wilson never opened his mouth much when he first spoke to me, in the fall of 1997, because his teeth were such a mess.
“Naw, I never go to a dentist” he explained sadly. “They never gave us painkiller at residential school, when they pulled our teeth”.
Harry’s teeth were yanked over forty years after the same torture was performed by Dr. Allen on the St. Paul’s children: a different school, and a Catholic one, but identical to the practice inflicted on Harry at a United Church Indian residential school in Port Alberni in 1967.
Harriett Nahanee had the same story, at the same school in 1946. So did Vera Little, at the Anglican school in Alert Bay in 1953. And the husband of Alia MacKenzie-Point at the Chehalis reservation in 1969.
I can’t hate Dr. Allen, or any of the other specialists who have ripped the teeth and the innocence from children with the full sanction of church and state for so many years. For like you and I, these torturers learned quickly how to numb themselves to the screams and the blood in order to get on with their job.
That struck me with a sudden clarity, alone in the forest, after my own tears had washed away my numbness, and I began, as always, to grapple with how to share this new evidence with the world in a way that would make others do something more than believe that the crimes did happen, and still happen. And yet I knew that, as with all the other evidence of these grisly acts done to aboriginal children, very few people would want to know the horrible truth, let alone dare to do anything about it.
Tempted by the old despair, I stared just then at what I had scribbled moments before: My pain and suffering is the nursing log out of which so many and so much will grow. And then an answer echoed in me, from something Alice Miller had written once:
We can never find empathy for the suffering of others until we have faced and embraced the pain done to ourselves.
I’ve often noticed how the church goers who trudge past our offered leaflets on a Sunday morning bear the same look, when confronted by what their church did, and what their collection money helps to cover up: people who are resigned. Batter someone enough, and they become that way.
We are all so weary of the battering we have each endured since infancy, and yet are so incapable of feeling we can do anything to stop it. Even the very life-giving sky above seems to mock life itself these days, stained by vile chemical trails spewed by corporate and military madmen far beyond our reach. What can even our best integrity and courage do in the face of the enormity of the violence we face?
Harry Wilson, and his counterparts Matilda and Theresa and all the other helpless little victims, knew the same despair, and some of them found a way to endure. And like Harry, who was able to tell what happened to him, when my own tears freely flowed the other day I found it easier to face the truth and find a light where there shouldn’t have been one. So Alice Miller must be on to something.
When we see our lives and our worlds for what they are, and can say so, we gain a power over what seemed like fate or irresistible injustice: sort of like naming a demon and calling it to leave a possessed soul. That’s the power of knowing our true history, individually and as a whole, and not denying the darkest moments, but describing them out loud, for what they are.
Rising up from the forested earth, I felt like a demon had indeed left me, and a warm surge of love filled me for those long dead and violated Indian children who still wait for justice. That kind of love doesn’t allow apathy or timid excuses: it does not rest until right is done. It was blessing beyond expression that day to feel the old flame arise in me again, born from my own grief, and theirs.
I ran joyfully from the woods on the sunlit path towards the bus stop, armed again with my being and the documented truth in my bag, and I knew that the time to act is always present in us. And from somewhere, the words of Rabbi Hillel sounded then:
If I am not for myself, then who will be?
If I am only for myself, then what am I?
If not now, when?
Torture survivor Harry Wilson (left) and Kevin Annett, 1997, Vancouver
..............................
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
See this introductory video on The Canadian Holocaust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com - and phone messages can be left for him at 250-591-4573 (Canada).
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Cherokee Link Newsletter
*********************************************************
Osiyo,
With the outstanding weather we’ve been experiencing, I have felt an urge to get outside and familiarize myself with our native flora which traditionally provided our ancestors not only with food but medicines as well. I was excited to hear about the Cherokee Nation Ethnobotany Conference that is focusing on preserving Native American environmental knowledge and practices, and is being held at W.W. Keller Complex May 24th, 25th. This conference will conclude with a guided nature walk near Rocky Ford north of Tahlequah. You can find more details at:
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33007/Press_Article.aspx
You can also view Ethnobotany’s live Lecture online at:
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/Webcasts/Default.aspx
I also need to stress that registration for Camp Cherokee Day Camps is drawing to a close. Applications must be received two weeks before the first day of camp at the location you have chosen. If you do not meet the deadline your child will miss out on the opportunity to experience activities like; robotics, photography lessons, and being taught traditional Cherokee arts. For a Full list of course descriptions and camp locations near you go visit:
http://camp.cherokee.org
If you were unable to attend or want to review the Council and Committee meetings for May 14, 2012 they have been archived at:
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/Webcasts/Default.aspx
Cherokee Nation
P.O. Box 948
Tahlequah, OK 74465
918 453-5000
*********************************************
********Cherokee Nation News*****************
*********************************************
Cherokee Nation Offers Clothing Vouchers for School Kids
his summer the Cherokee Nation is offering $100 clothing vouchers to help parents cope with the costs of getting their children dressed for a new school year. The vouchers will be redeemable at select Stage stores across northeastern Oklahoma.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33048/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Cherokee Nation Diabetes Program Finds Success
The Cherokee Nation Diabetes Prevention Program recently received high marks in its quarterly update, taking top spots in participant recruitment and retention.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33047/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Students Make History as First Graduates from Cherokee Nation’s Immersion School
The first 11 students to attend Cherokee Nation’s Immersion School made history Monday night when they graduated from the program during a commencement ceremony held at Sequoyah Schools’ Place Where They Play.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33046/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Sequoyah Schools Dean Graduates with Honors
Geary Don Crofford, Ph.D., and dean of academics at Sequoyah Schools recently graduated from the Oklahoma Principals’ Academy. The Oklahoma Principals' Academy provides K-12 principals and assistant principals leadership development customized for the unique challenges of leading today's elementary and secondary schools.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33045/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Cherokee Nation Offers Camp Cherokee Day Camps in Several Communities
This summer Cherokee Nation is offering young tribal citizens an opportunity to attend Camp Cherokee, an enriching cultural and academic experience that features programs from the Art Institute and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Academy.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33044/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
CNB makes $1.5 Million Special Payment to Cherokee Nation Contract Health Services
Cherokee Nation Contract Health Services received a dividend check for $1.51 million at Monday night’s Tribal Council meeting thanks to the April sale of Cherokee Nation Businesses’ corporate plane.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33043/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Cherokee Nation Foundation Establishes $1 Million Endowment at TU
Cherokee students planning to pursue higher education at The University of Tulsa are now eligible to obtain additional funding through a newly established $1 million endowment.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33042/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Cherokee Nation Businesses opens New Laundry Facility in Delaware County
Cherokee Nation Businesses hosted an open house for its new industrial laundry facility in Jay on Thursday. The new 5,600-square-foot facility eliminates the outsourcing of laundry services for its hotels and creates 11 new jobs in the area.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33041/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Cherokee Nation swears in Fifth Member of Election Commission
During its May general meeting, the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council confirmed a fifth and final member of the tribe’s Election Commission, increased the tribe’s budget to help fund housing and elder initiatives and approved a feasibility study to explore potential uses for tribal land.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33040/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Cherokee Holiday Art Show Seeks Entries
Entries are being accepted for the Sixth Cherokee National Holiday Art Show, to be held over Labor Day weekend in Tahlequah. Deadline for entering artwork in the show is Friday, Aug. 10.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33039/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter268
************************************
******Other Links of Interest*******
************************************
Games - http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/Kid'sArea/KidsGames/Default.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Community Calendar - http://calendars.cherokee.org/CommunityCalendar.aspx?source=Newsletter268
RSS Feed - http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/RSSFeeds/Default.aspx?source=Newsletter268
Podcasts - http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/PodCasts/Default.aspx?source=Newsletter268
******************************
Osiyo,
With the outstanding weather we’ve been experiencing, I have felt an urge to get outside and familiarize myself with our native flora which traditionally provided our ancestors not only with food but medicines as well. I was excited to hear about the Cherokee Nation Ethnobotany Conference that is focusing on preserving Native American environmental knowledge and practices, and is being held at W.W. Keller Complex May 24th, 25th. This conference will conclude with a guided nature walk near Rocky Ford north of Tahlequah. You can find more details at:
http://www.cherokee.org/
You can also view Ethnobotany’s live Lecture online at:
http://www.cherokee.org/
I also need to stress that registration for Camp Cherokee Day Camps is drawing to a close. Applications must be received two weeks before the first day of camp at the location you have chosen. If you do not meet the deadline your child will miss out on the opportunity to experience activities like; robotics, photography lessons, and being taught traditional Cherokee arts. For a Full list of course descriptions and camp locations near you go visit:
http://camp.cherokee.org
If you were unable to attend or want to review the Council and Committee meetings for May 14, 2012 they have been archived at:
http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Nation
P.O. Box 948
Tahlequah, OK 74465
918 453-5000
******************************
********Cherokee Nation News*****************
******************************
Cherokee Nation Offers Clothing Vouchers for School Kids
his summer the Cherokee Nation is offering $100 clothing vouchers to help parents cope with the costs of getting their children dressed for a new school year. The vouchers will be redeemable at select Stage stores across northeastern Oklahoma.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Nation Diabetes Program Finds Success
The Cherokee Nation Diabetes Prevention Program recently received high marks in its quarterly update, taking top spots in participant recruitment and retention.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Students Make History as First Graduates from Cherokee Nation’s Immersion School
The first 11 students to attend Cherokee Nation’s Immersion School made history Monday night when they graduated from the program during a commencement ceremony held at Sequoyah Schools’ Place Where They Play.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Sequoyah Schools Dean Graduates with Honors
Geary Don Crofford, Ph.D., and dean of academics at Sequoyah Schools recently graduated from the Oklahoma Principals’ Academy. The Oklahoma Principals' Academy provides K-12 principals and assistant principals leadership development customized for the unique challenges of leading today's elementary and secondary schools.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Nation Offers Camp Cherokee Day Camps in Several Communities
This summer Cherokee Nation is offering young tribal citizens an opportunity to attend Camp Cherokee, an enriching cultural and academic experience that features programs from the Art Institute and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Academy.
http://www.cherokee.org/
CNB makes $1.5 Million Special Payment to Cherokee Nation Contract Health Services
Cherokee Nation Contract Health Services received a dividend check for $1.51 million at Monday night’s Tribal Council meeting thanks to the April sale of Cherokee Nation Businesses’ corporate plane.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Nation Foundation Establishes $1 Million Endowment at TU
Cherokee students planning to pursue higher education at The University of Tulsa are now eligible to obtain additional funding through a newly established $1 million endowment.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Nation Businesses opens New Laundry Facility in Delaware County
Cherokee Nation Businesses hosted an open house for its new industrial laundry facility in Jay on Thursday. The new 5,600-square-foot facility eliminates the outsourcing of laundry services for its hotels and creates 11 new jobs in the area.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Nation swears in Fifth Member of Election Commission
During its May general meeting, the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council confirmed a fifth and final member of the tribe’s Election Commission, increased the tribe’s budget to help fund housing and elder initiatives and approved a feasibility study to explore potential uses for tribal land.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Holiday Art Show Seeks Entries
Entries are being accepted for the Sixth Cherokee National Holiday Art Show, to be held over Labor Day weekend in Tahlequah. Deadline for entering artwork in the show is Friday, Aug. 10.
http://www.cherokee.org/
******************************
******Other Links of Interest*******
******************************
Games - http://www.cherokee.org/
Community Calendar - http://calendars.cherokee.org/
RSS Feed - http://www.cherokee.org/
Podcasts - http://www.cherokee.org/
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| Billie Fidlin | 4:28pm May 18 |
WASHINGTON – A reauthorization of the Violence Against women
http://www.facebook.com/l/yAQE0VTVOAQHzzKfFeHHdIYOxlWrGhR7HCAXkXW9F4-0A8g/indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/05/16/vawa-passes-house-sans-tribal-court-provisions-113487
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| Marcia Lane | 7:15pm May 18 |
A Special Appeal to all People of Conscience:
Stand with Us on Sunday June 3 and Bring the Vatican to Justice:
A Call for Solidarity Actions to Support Irish men and women who Survived Church Terror
John Deegan, Mary Lawlor and Dave O’Brien are uncommon heroes who endured torture at the hands of the roman catholic church – and who are battling today to win justice. On May 4 in Dublin, they confronted Archbishop Dermot Martin and the Vatican with ten demands which must be enacted by September 15.
Those who raped and murdered children with impunity have no where left to run. The system that has protected them is collapsing in the face of the courage of those like John, Mary and Dave.
Don’t let these warriors fight alone. Stand with them on the first Sunday in June: the day before they are to meet again with church officials in Dublin.
We ask you to stage solidarity protests and sit ins at catholic churches in your community on Sunday, June 3 during the regular mass. Share a simple message: Agree to the Ten Demands, or face further disruption.
The demands are summarized below.
We also ask you to use this event to help prepare for September 15, and the launching of our new, global civil disobedience campaign of disruption and banishment aimed at the world’s oldest and deadliest corporation: the roman catholic church.
A sample leaflet for June 3 will be sent to you if you desire. Contact this email for more information. Stand by for more updates.
Issued to the Vatican May 4, 2012 (see www.itccs.org posting of May 4 for details):
1. Issue full reparations to survivors
2. Surrender the remains of those who died for a proper burial.
3. Return all land and wealth taken from church victims
4. Surrender all evidence and perpetrators of crimes against children
5. Annul Crimen Sollicitationis and all Vatican policies that protect child rapists
6. Expel and defrock all child raping priests and those who protect them, including the pope
7. Agree to the licensing of all clergy as public servants
8. Withdraw from all tax exemptions, concordats and privileges
9. Annul the status of the Vatican as a state and abolish Rome’s authority over its congregations
10. Redistribute the wealth of the Vatican Bank to church victims and the community, as Christ commands
Issued by The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS)
International Office, Brussels
18 May, 2012
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
See this introductory video on The Canadian Holocaust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPIh-267fg&feature=related
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com - and phone messages can be left for him at 250-591-4573 (Canada).
Stand with Us on Sunday June 3 and Bring the Vatican to Justice:
A Call for Solidarity Actions to Support Irish men and women who Survived Church Terror
John Deegan, Mary Lawlor and Dave O’Brien are uncommon heroes who endured torture at the hands of the roman catholic church – and who are battling today to win justice. On May 4 in Dublin, they confronted Archbishop Dermot Martin and the Vatican with ten demands which must be enacted by September 15.
Those who raped and murdered children with impunity have no where left to run. The system that has protected them is collapsing in the face of the courage of those like John, Mary and Dave.
Don’t let these warriors fight alone. Stand with them on the first Sunday in June: the day before they are to meet again with church officials in Dublin.
We ask you to stage solidarity protests and sit ins at catholic churches in your community on Sunday, June 3 during the regular mass. Share a simple message: Agree to the Ten Demands, or face further disruption.
The demands are summarized below.
We also ask you to use this event to help prepare for September 15, and the launching of our new, global civil disobedience campaign of disruption and banishment aimed at the world’s oldest and deadliest corporation: the roman catholic church.
A sample leaflet for June 3 will be sent to you if you desire. Contact this email for more information. Stand by for more updates.
Issued to the Vatican May 4, 2012 (see www.itccs.org posting of May 4 for details):
1. Issue full reparations to survivors
2. Surrender the remains of those who died for a proper burial.
3. Return all land and wealth taken from church victims
4. Surrender all evidence and perpetrators of crimes against children
5. Annul Crimen Sollicitationis and all Vatican policies that protect child rapists
6. Expel and defrock all child raping priests and those who protect them, including the pope
7. Agree to the licensing of all clergy as public servants
8. Withdraw from all tax exemptions, concordats and privileges
9. Annul the status of the Vatican as a state and abolish Rome’s authority over its congregations
10. Redistribute the wealth of the Vatican Bank to church victims and the community, as Christ commands
Issued by The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS)
International Office, Brussels
18 May, 2012
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
See this introductory video on The Canadian Holocaust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com - and phone messages can be left for him at 250-591-4573 (Canada).
 | itccs.org| The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
Several topics are covered in this 2 h |
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$45,000 Reward for Murdered White Buffalo - The Petition Site
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| Billie Fidlin | 9:04am May 20 |
Whisper n Thunder's interview with Onondaga Nation artist Peter B. Jones at Whisper n Thunder online magazine link Peter B. Jones below. His art can be view at:http://whispernthunder.org/Peter_B.html
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| Marcia Lane | 1:36pm May 22 |
Vicky the Dealer and Me
by Kevin D. Annett
I hate being Scottish. We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world will not make any fucking difference.
Renton, in Trainspotting
An ugly baby is a very nasty object - and the prettiest is frightful.
Queen Victoria
I was prepared to curse her today and all she stood for, but I never can stay pissed off at anyone for very long: even a long dead monarch who despised her own kids yet who people still grovel to, and whose alleged descendent, Charlie Windsor, is inflicting his inbred, moronic drolleries on us even now with his latest state visit to poor, sad Canada.
Besides, Victoria Day was always a fun time for me as a kid: no school, for starters, and fireworks all that night. Ted Fardo and I would horde our dimes for weeks prior to the holiday and splurge them on a mess of firecrackers that were unleashed as twilight fell over the prairies, and aimed at unsuspecting girls from our explosives-stuffed bike handles that functioned as perfect mini bazookas. None of the official displays that lit up the Winnipeg nighttime could hold a candle to our frenzied assault on the neighborhood kids, for it was our own doing.
On those days, Queen Victoria was rarely ever mentioned, except by some relative who’d fought in some war, and usually in deferential terms. Later, as an unemployed man in Hamilton’s grimy north end, whenever I’d stroll by the bit of local grass calling itself a park I’d notice an imposing statue of her, emblazoned with the bullshit inscription, “Victoria: A Devoted Regent and Mother”. But it might have added, “And the most shot-at British monarch in history”.
Seven times, actually: the first in 1839, when Edward Oxford took a pot shot at Vicky while she was perambulating through Hyde Park in an open carriage; then followed by other near-assassinations in 1842 (twice), 1849, 1850, 1872 and 1882.
Why did so many Britons hate Queen Victoria? Maybe it was because of all of her drug dealing.
By the 1840’s, well into Vicky’s reign, about a third of the revenue of her British Empire came directly from the Opium trade in China. Britain went to war twice with China to force opium on to its addicted and beleaguered populace, and Victoria compelled China to hand over cities, including Hong Kong, and pay millions of pounds to “compensate” her and “the crown” whenever the locals cut into her profit margin by destroying the drug in desperation.
Queen Vicky wasn’t the only culprit, of course. Vast fortunes were made all over England and America from the opium trade, including by most of the political and financial elite families of the United States: old “skull and bones” clans named Lord, Whitney, Taft, Jay, Bundy, Harriman, Weyerhaeuser, Pinchot, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloane, Stimson, Phelps, Perkins, Pillsbury, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, and of course, Bush.
Just like today, drug dealing was just good business, and it founded and sustains a lot of the modern day corporate, religious and academic empires – as well as the CIA. Big Pharma is the biggest political lobby in Washington, DC, and even funds the major theological seminaries where all the clergy are trained. Drugs make the world economy go around; and as every ruler knows, there’s nothing handier than an addicted and dependent populace.
So perhaps Vicky’s “subjects” were shooting at her so much for some other reason.
I like to think it was because she was screwing her Scottish man servant, that highland stud named John Brown. Och aye! Her nickname around Windsor Palace, where John Boy took up residence after Prince Albert knocked off, was “The Honorable Mrs. Brown”. Crowds used to boo and heckle the two of them whenever they rode out together bound for their latest roll in the heather. But that’s what comes from too much opium, I guess. You just sort of lose track of reality.
So here it is, the hallowed eve of Victoria Day, in the year 2012, and tonight the local Nanaimo, British Columbia newspapers are celebrating “Empire Day”, where various twits got to dress up like Victoria and Albert (but not John Brown, of course) and hold their silly annual parade over the graves of all the aboriginal people who were disposed of, like the Chinese, to make way for superior Anglo-Saxon Christian sensibilities.
It’s enough to drive one to smoke something.
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
See this introductory video on The Canadian Holocaust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPIh-267fg&feature=related
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com - and phone messages can be left for him at 250-591-4573 (Canada).
by Kevin D. Annett
I hate being Scottish. We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world will not make any fucking difference.
Renton, in Trainspotting
An ugly baby is a very nasty object - and the prettiest is frightful.
Queen Victoria
I was prepared to curse her today and all she stood for, but I never can stay pissed off at anyone for very long: even a long dead monarch who despised her own kids yet who people still grovel to, and whose alleged descendent, Charlie Windsor, is inflicting his inbred, moronic drolleries on us even now with his latest state visit to poor, sad Canada.
Besides, Victoria Day was always a fun time for me as a kid: no school, for starters, and fireworks all that night. Ted Fardo and I would horde our dimes for weeks prior to the holiday and splurge them on a mess of firecrackers that were unleashed as twilight fell over the prairies, and aimed at unsuspecting girls from our explosives-stuffed bike handles that functioned as perfect mini bazookas. None of the official displays that lit up the Winnipeg nighttime could hold a candle to our frenzied assault on the neighborhood kids, for it was our own doing.
On those days, Queen Victoria was rarely ever mentioned, except by some relative who’d fought in some war, and usually in deferential terms. Later, as an unemployed man in Hamilton’s grimy north end, whenever I’d stroll by the bit of local grass calling itself a park I’d notice an imposing statue of her, emblazoned with the bullshit inscription, “Victoria: A Devoted Regent and Mother”. But it might have added, “And the most shot-at British monarch in history”.
Seven times, actually: the first in 1839, when Edward Oxford took a pot shot at Vicky while she was perambulating through Hyde Park in an open carriage; then followed by other near-assassinations in 1842 (twice), 1849, 1850, 1872 and 1882.
Why did so many Britons hate Queen Victoria? Maybe it was because of all of her drug dealing.
By the 1840’s, well into Vicky’s reign, about a third of the revenue of her British Empire came directly from the Opium trade in China. Britain went to war twice with China to force opium on to its addicted and beleaguered populace, and Victoria compelled China to hand over cities, including Hong Kong, and pay millions of pounds to “compensate” her and “the crown” whenever the locals cut into her profit margin by destroying the drug in desperation.
Queen Vicky wasn’t the only culprit, of course. Vast fortunes were made all over England and America from the opium trade, including by most of the political and financial elite families of the United States: old “skull and bones” clans named Lord, Whitney, Taft, Jay, Bundy, Harriman, Weyerhaeuser, Pinchot, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloane, Stimson, Phelps, Perkins, Pillsbury, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, and of course, Bush.
Just like today, drug dealing was just good business, and it founded and sustains a lot of the modern day corporate, religious and academic empires – as well as the CIA. Big Pharma is the biggest political lobby in Washington, DC, and even funds the major theological seminaries where all the clergy are trained. Drugs make the world economy go around; and as every ruler knows, there’s nothing handier than an addicted and dependent populace.
So perhaps Vicky’s “subjects” were shooting at her so much for some other reason.
I like to think it was because she was screwing her Scottish man servant, that highland stud named John Brown. Och aye! Her nickname around Windsor Palace, where John Boy took up residence after Prince Albert knocked off, was “The Honorable Mrs. Brown”. Crowds used to boo and heckle the two of them whenever they rode out together bound for their latest roll in the heather. But that’s what comes from too much opium, I guess. You just sort of lose track of reality.
So here it is, the hallowed eve of Victoria Day, in the year 2012, and tonight the local Nanaimo, British Columbia newspapers are celebrating “Empire Day”, where various twits got to dress up like Victoria and Albert (but not John Brown, of course) and hold their silly annual parade over the graves of all the aboriginal people who were disposed of, like the Chinese, to make way for superior Anglo-Saxon Christian sensibilities.
It’s enough to drive one to smoke something.
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
www.KevinAnnett.com
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
See this introductory video on The Canadian Holocaust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and Kevin Annett - Eagle Strong Voice (adopted May 2004 into the Anishinabe nation by Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind).
Kevin can be reached at hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com - and phone messages can be left for him at 250-591-4573 (Canada).
 | itccs.org| The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
John Deega |
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| Marcia Lane | 11:57pm May 22 |
Peter YellowQuill, Ojibwe-Lakota Elder with Kevin Annett
By Hiddenfromhistory
In Politics Progressive
Airdate:Sat, May 26, 2012 04:00PM Call in to speak with the host
(347) 857-3524
Skype
If you liked this show, you can follow Hiddenfromhistory.
H:70431
S:3248373
Upcoming
Petter YellowQuill is an Ojibwe Lakota Elder and former Chief of 8 years from the Ojibwe Nation's Long Plain Reserve in Manitoba ,Canada. He has spent his life fighting for tribal rights working as a Social Services Administrator,Band Administrator,Director of Education,and negotiator for school projects. Aside from these , he was Chief and Negotiator for Land Repatriation,Chairman of the Dakota-Ojibwe Tribal Council, and sat on the Assembly of Manitoba Chief's Executive Committee as well. He has some things to share about police attacks on Ojibwe youth on his reserve, a court challenge he's bringing against Canada and why the Canadian Indian Act should be repealed or changed and what needs to be done and what he is doing to try and make that happen. He is also a survivor of the Portage la Prairie Residential School as well as the Brandon Residential Indian School , spoken out publicly against the church-government fraudulent "truth and reconciliation commission", and will be talking about his experiences and the long term effects it has had on survivors and their families.
Panel: Host Kevin Annett,co host Russ Letica, Bill Annett and Producer Marcie Lane
www.blogtalkradio.com/hiddenfromhistory
By Hiddenfromhistory
In Politics Progressive
Airdate:Sat, May 26, 2012 04:00PM Call in to speak with the host
(347) 857-3524
Skype
If you liked this show, you can follow Hiddenfromhistory.
H:70431
S:3248373
Upcoming
Petter YellowQuill is an Ojibwe Lakota Elder and former Chief of 8 years from the Ojibwe Nation's Long Plain Reserve in Manitoba ,Canada. He has spent his life fighting for tribal rights working as a Social Services Administrator,Band Administrator,Director of Education,and negotiator for school projects. Aside from these , he was Chief and Negotiator for Land Repatriation,Chairman of the Dakota-Ojibwe Tribal Council, and sat on the Assembly of Manitoba Chief's Executive Committee as well. He has some things to share about police attacks on Ojibwe youth on his reserve, a court challenge he's bringing against Canada and why the Canadian Indian Act should be repealed or changed and what needs to be done and what he is doing to try and make that happen. He is also a survivor of the Portage la Prairie Residential School as well as the Brandon Residential Indian School , spoken out publicly against the church-government fraudulent "truth and reconciliation commission", and will be talking about his experiences and the long term effects it has had on survivors and their families.
Panel: Host Kevin Annett,co host Russ Letica, Bill Annett and Producer Marcie Lane
www.blogtalkradio.com/
 | Kevin Annett Online Radio by Hiddenfromhistory
Telling the Untold Story of the Ge |
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From the Eagle Watch
May 23, 2012
FYI - It's time overdue that this issue gain more attention. It appears that someone is trying to kill us all!!!
Kittoh
May 23, 2012
FYI - It's time overdue that this issue gain more attention. It appears that someone is trying to kill us all!!!
Kittoh
No wonder people with EMF sensitivies worry re ever going to a hospital. Martin is another dedicated leader in the educational field on the topic of microwave radiation. He is a former Toronto police force. This article certainly makes one aware of what hospitals all over the country have unknowingly, in most cases allowed.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Wireless Danger at Stratford General Hospital?
19 August 2010
Open letter to:
The Minister of Health for Ontario
The Hon. Deb Matthews
18 August 2010
Stratford,
Ontario
Wireless Danger at Stratford General Hospital.
Dear Minister Matthews,
On Friday 6 August 2010 you opened the new wing at Stratford General Hospital. Later that same day I went on a guided tour of the new wing. It is a fabulous new facility that will serve the community well for many years.
During my tour I used a high quality radio frequency meter to measure wireless microwave radiation. What I discovered was shocking. A wireless Wi Fi communications system has been installed throughout the new wing and throughout many other areas of the hospital, including the patient accommodations. This has been implemented despite the fact that I provided senior hospital officials with information about the dangers of such a system over a year earlier.
The new wireless system operates from dozens of Wi Fi ports that are installed throughout the hospital every few metres. Each Wi Fi port emits very strong microwave radiation that reaches in all directions, covering many areas of the hospital in dangerously high levels of microwave radiation. The devices emit this dangerous electro magnetic pollutant twenty-four hours a day, all year around, as long as they are powered, even when not actually transmitting or receiving.
A few weeks earlier, I had occasion to visit a patient at the Stratford Hospital. When I arrived at the hospital, I was healthy and feeling well. When I left approximately forty minutes later, I was suffering with asthmatic type symptoms, even though I am not asthmatic. The cause of my almost instant illness was the microwave radiation emitted by a Wi Fi port just outside the room where I was visiting. Although the Wi Fi port was several metres away in the passageway on the other side of the wall, the radiation passed through the wall and was still very strong even at the bed located the furthest distance from the device. All occupants of that room were being subjected to electro magnetic radiation that is harmful to their health. The hospital has placed its patients and staff into a situation that is both harmful and unacceptable.
Life on earth has only recently started to be exposed to radiation at these high levels. Research has shown that people who have been exposed to microwave radiation in their past employment or others who have lived near antennas, have significantly higher amounts of cancer and many other illnesses than those who have not been exposed. Scientific research indicates that the effect to our health over long periods of time may be very harmful ( http://www.neilcherry.com/documents/90_s2_EMR_Brain_ ). The adverse health effects of microwave radiation have been known for over sixty-five years ( http://www.zoryglaser.com/ ). Some of these health effects are known as "microwave illness" or "radio wave sickness". Scientific studies that document the harm, number into the thousands. Long term exposure can lead to several very serious illnesses. There are good scientific reasons to believe that electro magnetic radiation is possibly the most serious environmental and health threat that we face today:cancer_paper09-02.pdf
( http://www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/papers/warnke_bbm. ).
These are some of the known health effects:Depression Suicide Insomnia Chronic Fatigue Cancers and Leukemia Alzheimer's Parkinson's Disease Heart palpitations and arrhythmias Chest pain Stroke Low or high blood pressure Asthma Skin rashes and irritations Altered sugar metabolism leading to diabetes Infertility and miscarriage Headaches and migraines Attention Deficit Disorder Difficulty concentrating Ringing in the ears Joint pain / arthritis
Soviet research from many years ago indicates that health effects caused by microwave radiation are similar to health effects caused by pesticides. Can you imagine all patients in an entire hospital being continually sprayed by harmful pesticides? Open sewers running through the hospital, would probably be less harmful.
Research indicates that the children of women who use cell phones and cordless telephones (microwave radiation) during pregnancy show drastically increased behavioral problems by the time that they reach school age. Children and babies are particularly susceptible to harm from microwave radiation and this pollution must be kept away from the pediatrics department. There is a greater risk of miscarriages for pregnant women exposed to strong levels of microwave radiation.
Exposure to microwave radiation such as that from Stratford Hospital's Wi-Fi system is known to create stress responses that harm people, animals, birds and other living things. The "Freiburger Appeal" is a doctors' perspective on concerns about the health effects of electro magnetic radiation ( http://omega.twoday.net/stories/566350/ ) that you should consider.
The Irish Doctors' Environmental Association (http://www.ideaireland.org/emr.htm ) have also written an important document providing doctors' perspectives about the dangers of microwave radiation.
In the new wing of the Stratford hospital, one of the wireless hubs that I measured during my tour was at the emergency admitting area, just above where the patients are interviewed during registration. Can you imagine an ill person with a possible heart condition being subjected to strong microwave radiation that is already known to cause serious adverse effects on the heart? This is medical madness at its worst.
In the very impressive new Pre and Post Anaesthetic Care Unit I found four Wi Fi hubs, located in each area of the unit. The patients located closest to these devices will be exposed to very high amounts of dangerous microwave radiation and all other patients will be exposed to varying amounts that could still harm them. This is a critical care area where the health of patients can be in great danger. Patients should not be placed at such risk during critical care and the staff should not be subjected to electro magnetic radiation that could affect their cognitive functions in this stressful environment.
As well, patients waiting in the CAT scan area will be subjected to very high levels of microwave radiation from a Wi Fi hub in the ceiling above. It is probable that some critically ill patients will be waiting here, and their lives will be further endangered by radiation from this device. Other patients who are in this waiting area will also be subjected to this danger. This same danger can be found in the Ultrasound waiting area, where there is another Wi Fi hub in the ceiling. The Mammography waiting area is similarly dangerous because of the microwave exposure.
At the Stroke Centre, just outside one of the specialized rooms, a Wi Fi hub is located in the ceiling of the passageway on the opposite side of a wall. Although I was unable to enter the room and confirm this, I suspect that the radiation will pass through the wall and affect the stroke patients inside the room. Stroke is another illness linked to microwave radiation, it has been shown to thicken blood, as shown by live blood testing (http://www.magdahavas.com/2010/03/22/live-blood-cells- ). Microwave radiation must be kept away from stroke patients.and-electrosmog/
Outside Operating Room # 1, I measured strong microwave radiation. I did not have access to the room itself, but I suspect the microwave radiation was being emitted by a device inside the operating room. If this is the case, it is just plain stupidity and negligence on the part of those involved in planning this system. This is a life threatening danger in a critical care area. Microwave radiation must be kept away from operating rooms.
I measured enough of the new hospital wing to know that patients at this facility are facing danger from short-term exposure from microwave radiation. The staff who will be permanently working in this environment face significant long-term harm. This is a huge liability issue for the hospital because staff may become ill from exposure to this dangerous new pollutant. We cannot afford to endanger the safety of the patients and staff at this, or any, hospital for a dangerous and badly conceived communications system.
There are many more adverse effects of electro magnetic radiation than I have mentioned above. To assist you to find more information about those effects, two thousand scientific studies are referenced atwww.bioinitiative.org (The BioInitiative Report). After you have studied some of the information about the known dangers, I think that you will agree that this type of radiation must not be used in our hospitals.
I suffer from a condition recognized by the World Health Organization and the Canadian Human Rights Commission that is called electro hypersensitivity. This condition is becoming increasingly well known as more people are being harmed by modern wireless technology. Microwave radiation makes me very ill. It was probably a key factor in the development of the cancer that I suffered five years ago. More recently, blind scientific testing showed that microwave radiation has dangerous effects on my heart. An emergency trip to Stratford Hospital with its new Wi Fi communications system is an alarming prospect for me. Instead of healing and help, the experience could easily make my condition worse or kill me. My wife has asked me what she should do about if I were admitted to hospital in an acute situation. I have instructed her to ask the staff to turn off any of the Wi Fi hubs located nearby that may be affecting me. If that is not done, I have suggested that she disable the device by smashing it, as it may be the only other option that would ensure my safety. Nobody should fear a hospital visit due to a dangerous Wi Fi and communications system! Hospitals should be safe for all patients, visitors and staff.
Although Health Canada may quote Safety Code Six, there are no real and practical "safety" standards in Canada because the Canadian Government ignores all health effects other than heating effects. Canadian microwave radiation standards are based simply on heating, known as "thermal effects". Health Canada fail to take into account the "biological" effects that radiation has upon the brain, the heart, muscles, the skin, the brain and the nervous system. Independent scientists from around the world have demonstrated these effects exist at very low radiation exposure levels, but Health Canada has consistently and negligently ignored these findings. Yes, Minister, even you and your family are in danger because radiation levels that you have been told are safe, are not.
While this letter is written about the situation at Stratford Hospital, I am aware of two other Ontario hospitals that have similar dangerous communications systems. This is a critical time for the health and safety of patients, hospitals and the entire Ontario Healthcare system. If you fail in your duties now by failing to make hospitals safe from this invisible new pollution, you could indirectly cause much illness and death to Ontario residents. You could also be responsible for damaging the entire health care system.
Here are some actions that you need to take:Educate yourself, your staff and the Ontario Government about the adverse health effects caused by exposure to microwave radiation. Educate doctors and all other medical personnel about the health effects of microwave radiation. Ensure that they can recognize the symptoms and provide advice to their patients. Order all non essential microwave emitting equipment to be removed from the inside of hospitals. Protect patients from exposure from sources of microwave radiation that originate outside of the hospital (antennas etc). Protect the health of citizens of Ontario by advising them about the danger of microwave radiation from devices in their homes, at work and in their environment. Order an investigation into the use of this type of dangerous Wi Fi communications equipment in Ontario Hospitals to find out why it was installed and why those responsible have ignored massive amounts of scientific research that shows the dangers. Call for an Ontario Government Inquiry into the reasons why the Federal Government is ignoring the massive amount of evidence about non-thermal adverse health effects of microwave radiation and why they are failing to protect Ontario and other Canadian citizens from that danger.
The fact that the mainstream medical establishment in Ontario is mostly unaware about the health dangers and effects of electro magnetic radiation shows negligence on the part of your Ministry. The evidence and scientific studies are clearly available to you. You must not ignore this information. You have a duty to ensure the safety of hospitals and the health care system. If you fail to ensure the safety of our hospitals and fail to take every precaution to ensure that electro magnetic radiation does not effect patients and endanger the health care system, it is possible that you may face criminal charges in the future.
Sincerely,
Martin Weatherall
Co Director, WEEP
The Canadian initiative to stop Wireless Electrical and ElectromagneticPollution.
www.weepinitiative
weather@golden.net
and
Candidate for Mayor
City of Stratford
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Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field
and in the policy arena to protect America's last wild buffalo.
Buffalo Field Campaign
Yellowstone Bison
Update from the Field
May 24, 2012
Find BFC on FaceBook!
* NEW BFC Video Footage from the Field
* Update from the Field
* Notable Buffalo News Article
* Love, Respect, Protect: New BFC Note Cards Available
* Outreach Volunteers Wanted for Summer Tabling
* Endangered Buffalo Fact of the Week
* By the Numbers
* Last Words
* NEW! BFC Video Footage from the Field
BFC's latest video provides a beautiful glimpse into the tender moments of the lives of wild and free buffalo--the way it should be--and a disturbing view into the horrors of a hazing operation. Employees of the Department of Livestock and other government agencies even treat their horses with thoughtlessness and cruelty. Maybe there's a lesson here?
* Update from the Field
We're in the heart of wild buffalo calving season. It is a time when baby buffalo are coming into the world every day. It is an extremely sensitive time for buffalo cows and their new calves, with most groups of buffalo essentially being a nursery. Napping, nursing and brief bursts of playfulness are the norm for the wee calves, while grazing the rich, green new grasses are a must for the mothers and other family members who have but a few short months to bulk up before winter sets in again. These photos show things as they should be for wild buffalo. But, no thanks to the Montana Department of Livestock, these moments of tranquility are short-lived for our gentle friends.
These are the indefensible reasons that wild buffalo suffer abuse in their native Montana: cattle and people's unhealthy appetite for beef. While the handful of hobby ranchers in the Hebgen Basin normally don't bring cattle to the area until mid-June or later, hobby rancher Pat Povah brought a whopping two cows to his Deep Well Ranch last week, creating unnecessary conflict and making a taxpayer-funded chess game of the landscape.
So far all IBMP agencies have completely disregarded the request from the MT-WY Tribal Leaders Council calling for an end to hazing of wild buffalo. In a show of disrespect for these First Nations and their treaty rights, the DOL actually requested a meeting with Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer on Tuesday to plead for permission to capture and slaughter buffalo. The Governor's office denied the request.
Hazing has continued nearly every day and the buffalo have been showing strong resistance. They are clearly fed up with being constantly harassed and are tired of having to defend their newborn calves from the aggressive horseback riders who push them around. On Monday, after hazing nearly seventy wild buffalo with over twenty babies, the calves were exhausted and their mothers frustrated by the agents' aggressive harassment. The buffalo showed resistance, and no matter how loud the livestock agents yelled, how crazily they ran their horses back and forth, how many cracker-rounds they fired, or how many lassos they twirled, they couldn't get the buffalo to move. The operation was terminated one mile from highway 191 on the Gallatin National Forest; the buffalo had won the day, but the DOL livestock inspectors would take their tempers out on the buffalo in the subsequent days.
While hazing needs to stop altogether, it is extremely irresponsible of the DOL to cut their hazing operations off so close to the highway, as nearly all have been. This guarantees that buffalo - who are bound to follow their instincts and return to the habitat they were forced off of - will have to again cross the busy highway. On Monday afternoon, after the DOL ended the above-mentioned operation, three DOL agents and a game warden with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) targeted buffalo moms and babies who were grazing along Hebgen Lake and actually hazed them right to Highway 287, where they then dropped the haze, leaving the buffalo on the highway near a blind curve. Tourist season is picking up and the highways are extremely busy this time of year with RVs and trailer trucks. The DOL's irresponsible actions continue to endanger the public and wild buffalo and keep BFC's highway patrols busy warning traffic day and night.
Tuesday brought the DOL, Park Service, and FWP agents back to Gallatin National Forest where they had ended the hazing operation the day before. They were assisted by U.S. Forest Service and Gallatin County law enforcement, who complied without question to the DOL's every command. These law enforcement officers keep BFC at a great distance from the hazing operations, unconstitutionally preventing our right to document government actions on public lands. Local DOL livestock inspector "Bridger" was in a foul mood and acted especially aggressive towards the buffalo. Many of his co-riders kept their distance from him.
Buffalo were chased off of Gallatin National Forest, along Highway 191, and up the bluffs into Yellowstone National Park. The agencies had intended to haze them all the way to Cougar Knoll, about seven miles into the Park, but instead needlessly ran the buffalo around in circles through thick forests and up and down steep bluffs. Two elk and their new calves of the year were disrupted in the operation, and the day before BFC patrols had spotted fresh grizzly bear tracks from multiple bears along the very path the agents were pushing the buffalo. It was a chaotic and rainy day with wet cowboys in bad moods and the buffalo paying the price. When the hazing operation ended, it was again less than a mile from the highway.
On Wednesday the agents tried to keep BFC even further from their hazing. One BFC patrol was near Highway 191 waiting to document the approaching chase, which was well over a mile from their position. DOL agent Rob Tierney told them they couldn't be there and ordered them to "go north or south." Patrols complied and headed north, far north of the path of the hazing operation, which wasn't yet approaching the highway and nowhere in their sight. The highway was still open to traffic, yet no sooner did they comply with the order than a Gallatin County sheriff approached them and ticketed one of them for "obstructing" the hazing! Rob Tierney later falsely claimed that he had given "crystal clear" directions no less than "three times". The Gallatin County sheriff didn't bother to question the incident he didn't even see. Meanwhile, the buffalo are being shoved off of the lands that are their birthright once again.
Wednesday's hazing operation forced the buffalo out of Montana and deep into Yellowstone National Park. These tired buffalo who have been relentlessly abused by the aggressive agents nearly every day for the past six weeks were pushed at least twelve miles in seven hours today. Such unnecessary cruelty is too much for the adults and torture for newborns.
Wild is the Way ~ Roam Free!!
* Notable Buffalo News Article
Native Habitat for America's Last Wild Buffalo is Guaranteed by Treaty Rights, Tribes Say
Indian Country Today, Terrie Hansen
* Love, Respect, Protect: New BFC Note Cards Available
BFC is proud to announce the launch of a beautiful new greeting card celebrating wild buffalo. With artwork by Julia Lucey, this card is the perfect way to share your love of Yellowstone buffalo. A pack of ten 8.5" x 5.5" (4.25" x 5.5" folded) cards and envelopes cost just $15 plus s&h. ORDER TODAY and support Buffalo Field Campaign!
* Outreach Volunteers Wanted for Summer Tabling
Buffalo Field Campaign will begin our summer outreach inside Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in June, and we are looking for passionate, articulate folks who can help run our information tables, talk to park visitors, and help build a strong constituency for wild buffalo. BFC provides food, lodging, camping, gear, and transportation to and from our table in the Park. We ask for at least a two week commitment in order to accommodate training and orientation. This is a great opportunity to get involved and advocate for America's last wild buffalo! Please contact Tony for more information.
* Endangered Buffalo Fact of the Week
FACT: "Prehistoric bison distribution in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem can perhaps best be summarized simply by saying that bison appear to have been living everywhere in Greater Yellowstone where habitats were suitable." (Schullery and Whittlesey.)
Bison conservation papers can be downloaded and reviewed HERE
* By the Numbers
AMERICAN BUFFALO ELIMINATED from the last wild population in the U.S. The last wild population is currently estimated at fewer than 3,700 individual buffalo. Wild bison are currently ecologically extinct throughout their native range in North America.
2011-2012 Total Buffalo Killed: 29
2011-2012 Government Capture: 10
2011-2012 Buffalo Released from Capture: 7
2011-2012 Government Slaughter:
2011-2012 Held for Government Experiment: 3
2011-2012 Died In Government Trap:
2011-2012 Miscarriage in Government Trap:
2011-2012 State & Treaty Hunts: 28
2011-2012 Quarantine:
2011-2012 Shot by Agents:
2011-2012 Killed by Angry Residents:
2011-2012 Highway Mortality: 1
2010-2011 Total: 227
2009-2010 Total: 7
2008-2009 Total: 22
2007-2008 Total: 1,631
* Total Since 2000: 4,004*
*includes lethal government action, trap-related fatalities, quarantine/experiments, hunts, highway mortality
* Last Words
"The wars against the Native Americans are over! Are they still mad about General Custer? I'm still mad about the loss of my people too! But I don't chase their cattle to death! This is all wrong!"
~ Devon Boyer, Sergeant At Arms, ShoShone Bannock Tribal Business Council, responding to the DOL's actions as reported in last week's email Update from the Field.
Do you have submissions for Last Words? Send them to us. Thank you for all the poems, songs, quotes and stories you have been sending! Keep them coming!
--
Media & Outreach
Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.
BFC is the only group working in the field every day
in defense of the last wild buffalo population in the U.S.
KEEP BFC ON THE FRONTLINES
Join Buffalo Field Campaign -- It's Free!
Tell-a-Friend!
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May 24, 2012
I took a drive around Kanekota last week to get some filming done and when we drove by the claim area at Lot 1 Concession 11, I noticed a Royal Lepage Real estate sign listing my claim for sale. I immediately sent a letter to the top lawyer in the Canadian Forces, the JAG. I have been waiting for someone in the “corporation” to follow their own law for 7 years now. The “Rule of Law” that Harper and Toews rave about in the Commons, is what I would like to happen here. Royal Proclamation supersedes all Admiralty Statutes.
General Cathcart has the duty of JAG in the corporation of Canada and he is now in possession of the following letter I sent. The corporate takeover of the Protectorate area is illegal, including the windmills and other things I have wrote about in my +10 years as the “eyes and ears” of the Mohawk in Kanekota. The Minister of Finance has been at the head of this cabal to ignore a royal proclamation and he should be arrested right in the House of Commons for “High Treason”. I would like to be present when that happens.
May 18, 2012
Brigadier-General Blaise Cathcart
Office of the Judge Advocate General
National Defence Headquarters, 11th Floor
305 Rideau St , Ottawa,ON K1A 0K2
Dear General Cathcart,
I am thahoketoteh of Kanekota and I write you today regarding Royal Proclamation 1784. Your office has received correspondence from the Chief of the General Staff in London (letter copied) regarding my claim for Lot1 Concession 11 Nottawasaga Township, Simcoe County. I need your assistance now as there is a civilian Real Estate Agent that has recently listed a portion of my entire claim. This property was originally bought as 180 acre farm in 1972 by Etobicoke Board of Education for $102,000. Our notice to claim this part was given them in 2005. The claim was for the entire lot 1 concession11 which was 360 acres. Some portion of my claim was sold off in 2006 to private interest which The Minister of Finance has built an estate property refusing to follow a Royal Proclamation. This is against Rule of Law since Royal Proclamation supersedes Admiralty Law Statutes. I require your assistance in setting proper jurisdiction and finally bringing some peace to this matter. The Civilian Realty firm is Royal Lepage and the Agent is Ginny MacEachern the number on the sign is 1-800-360-5821. Jim Flaherty’s contact information :701 Rossland Road East- Unit 204, Whitby, Ontario L1N 8Y9, Telephone: (905) 665-8182(picture attached of Lot 1 concession 11).
This has gone on far too long, I am Her Majesty’s faithful ally as stated in the Proclamation and require your assistance now. Please contact all of these entities seeking to ignore this Royal Proclamation. I would like to inhabit the property this summer and have been waiting for the Rule of Law for 8 years now. Corporation of Canada is under Admiralty Law and their jurisdiction covers all water except; “6 miles deep from each side of the Grand River from Lake Erie to its Head” as stated by Captain General Sir Frederic Haldimand in 1784 and with Royal Proclamation status. I trust you will follow the Law on this matter and I await your assistance so that we may continue on in Peace, as was the original intent of Haldimand’s order for you. Unity, Strength, Peace,
thahoketoteh of Kanekota
cc: General Sir Peter Wall
This letter was delivered on May 22 , 2012. As Etowokoam said when he returned from England in 1710 "they rely on the written word, it is how they will be judged"
"The Rule of Law not the rule of the jungle" is what George Bush once said. We shall all be better when the rule of law applies here. We shall be rid of the criminals right in the House of Commons.
When we gather our minds together as one on issues that affect us all, we shall finally find peace.
Unity, Strength, Peace,
thahoketoteh of Kanekota
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Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field
and in the policy arena to protect America's last wild buffalo.
27 BISON, INCLUDING NEWBORNS, CAPTURED NEAR YELLOWSTONE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 24, 2012
Contacts:
Stephany Seay, Buffalo Field Campaign, 443 417-3106
Dan Brister, Buffalo Field Campaign, 406-646-6506
WEST YELLOWSTONE, MONTANA: 27 wild American buffalo (bison), members of America's only continuously wild population, were captured this morning near West Yellowstone. The operation was led by the Montana Department of Livestock (MDOL) and took place at the MDOL's Duck Creek bison trap, located on private land adjacent to the western edge of Yellowstone National Park. 12 newborn calves, 12 mothers, and three two-year-olds were relocated in the operation.
Other state and federal agencies participating in todays capture operation include the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MFWP), the National Park Service, the US Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and the Gallatin County Sheriffs Office.
The buffalo were sorted by age inside the trap--with newborns being separated from their mothers--loaded onto livestock trailers, transported into Yellowstone National Park, and released at Fountain Flats early this afternoon. It is unknown whether any animals suffered injuries as a result of confinement and transportation.
The agencies have been engaged in intensive hazing here for the past six weeks, incessantly chasing bison at the height of calving season.
"While we hail the decision not to slaughter these animals, we are deeply disappointed in Montanas stubborn refusal to let wild bison be wild bison," said Buffalo Field Campaign's Executive Director Dan Brister, "How long will we treat our last wild bison like livestock, separate newborn calves form their mothers, and allow the Department of Livestock to dictate their fate?"
Buffalo Field Campaign is a non-profit public interest organization founded in 1997 to stop the harassment and slaughter of Americas last wild bison populations that inhabit the Yellowstone region, protect the natural habitat of wild free-roaming bison and other native wildlife, and to work with people of all Nations to honor the sacredness of wild bison.
More information can be found at http://www.
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From the Eagle WatchMay 24, 2012
FYI - re the big NATO summit in Chicago, 2 articles from the Stop NATO list. See endnotes for contact info.
NATO: Big Money, Big Interests And Global Domination
NATO Summit: Everything That Is Wrong With Our Society
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Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field
and in the policy arena to protect America's last wild buffalo.
Buffalo Field Campaign
Yellowstone Bison
Update from the Field
May 31, 2012
Find BFC on FaceBook!
* NEW BFC Video: Wild Bison Captured, Trucked into Yellowstone
* Update from the Field
* Love, Respect, Protect: New BFC Note Cards Available
* Outreach Volunteers Wanted for Summer Tabling
* BFC Wish List ~ Large Camping Tent
* Endangered Buffalo Fact of the Week
* By the Numbers
* Last Words
* NEW! BFC Video: Wild Buffalo Captured, Trucked into Yellowstone
Five government agencies spend millions of your tax dollars on behalf of Montana's cattle industry. These buffalo were hazed five miles down a Highway, captured in pens, loaded onto horse trailers, driven 45 miles into Yellowstone National Park, and released. All this to protect Montana's cows that are not even in the Area.
Read BFC's press release
* Update from the Field 
With spring in full bloom and BFC's field season nearing its end, our amazing volunteers have started to scatter to the four directions, though the hazing and abuse of wild buffalo has not let up. While we are a little short-handed and very tired, we continue to stand with the buffalo, documenting all actions against them and working to change the government policies that result in their hazing, capture, and slaughter.
After a welcome and snowy three-day weekend free from livestock inspectors and buffalo abuse, things quickly changed on Tuesday morning. A family group of twenty-two buffalo with six newborn calves and a bachelor group of five mature bulls were forced off of their chosen habitat and chased for over eleven miles. Pretending to be cowboys, agents from the Department of Livestock; Yellowstone National Park; Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; and the USDA-Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service hounded the buffalo on horseback, shouting things like "Yip!" and "Hayah!". The buffalo were chased down the Hebgen Lake corridor, along highways 287 and 191, and toward the Duck Creek trap where we feared they would be captured, loaded into trailers, and trucked into Yellowstone. We would later learn that the DOL had wanted to do so but had been overruled by the Park Service, who insisted that the buffalo be hazed deep into Yellowstone.
When the riders entered Yellowstone National Park, they violated a grizzly bear closure. This closure is in place to protect threatened grizzly bears from encountering humans during the sensitive spring months after they emerge from their winter dens hungry and, for some, with brand new cubs to defend. Grizzly bears are very active in the Hebgen Basin and BFC field patrols have continued to spot bears and fresh sign. Federally protected under the Endangered Species Act, grizzly bears were the catalyst for grounding the DOL's intrusive and disruptive helicopter. Though the temporary restraining order expired at noon on Monday, the DOL helicopter has not returned.
On Wednesday the agents opted to haze wild buffalo out of privately owned buffalo safe zones, against the direct wishes of the landowners. Eight riders willfully trespassed on the Galanis property. They found no buffalo.
There were approximately 100 adult and young buffalo, along with 100 brand new calves in the buffalo-friendly Yellowstone Village, where the buffalo are always welcome and the agents are not. Regardless, the DOL and APHIS agents entered the Village and chased them away.
These government agencies show even less respect for buffalo as they do for homeowners. During Wednesday's operation, BFC patrols documented some extreme tactics. We saw numerous buffalo who had been shot with red paint balls, one had even been shot directly in the anus. The DOL uses the paint balls to mark buffalo that they haze so they can tell if they are "sticking" to the park after being hazed. Marked buffalo spotted outside the park are deemed "repeat offenders," an excuse used to justify their subsequent capture. DOL agents were also observed using their lassos to whip the buffalo into running faster.
As the haze moved off of private property onto Gallatin National Forest, the DOL violated yet another wildlife closure, this one to protect nesting bald eagles. Horse Butte currently has three active bald eagle nests and the area surrounding them is "closed to all human activity." But if you're the DOL a quick phone call to the Forest Service will get you in, no questions asked.
Over the course of the chase buffalo began to show signs of exhaustion and frustration. Calves tried to nurse at every possible chance. Adults tried to graze on the move. Mother buffalo bluff-charged the agents who were threatening them and their children, and the agents responded with ultra-aggressive cowboy behavior, yipping and hollering, galloping at the buffalo, swinging their lassos, and laughing as if it were funny.
By the time they reached highway 191, 200 exhausted buffalo, including 100 newborns,had been run for six miles in less than two and half hours. The more exhausted the buffalo became, the more aggressive the agents grew. They had a goal, after all: to force every last wild buffalo out of Montana. Not far behind, a smaller group of four buffalo moms and their calves and two young buffalo were also being chased. Tired and hungry, the buffalo still had at least another seven miles to go before the agents would leave them be.
The riders had planned on taking the buffalo deep into Yellowstone National Park along the bluffs of the Madison River. But as soon as the buffalo had a chance, they bolted down the steep bluffs to a small tributary surrounded by grass, where they immediately started to graze and drink water.
Ruthless in their goal, the agents came right after them. The smaller group, moving at a much slower pace, was running out of steam. The four calves were utterly exhausted, and the agents chasing them - representing Yellowstone and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks - were acting conflicted. This smaller operation ended soon after it entered the Park. The larger operation continued on for a few more miles to a place called Barnes Hole - a few miles short of the DOL's intended goal of Cougar Knoll. Futile, senseless, and abusive, the hazing drew to a close. As soon as it did, many of these wild buffalo began to turn around and head toward the habitat they had been chased from. Perhaps the DOL is attempting to create job-security, because the buffalo will return to Montana.
Wild is the Way ~ Roam Free!
TAKE ACTION! Stop Wild Buffalo Abuse!
You can help stop this madness by contacting the decision-makers involved as well as your Members of Congress. Please visit our Take Action page and then also get in touch with the responsible decision-makers.
* Love, Respect, Protect: New BFC Note Cards Available
BFC is proud to share a new and beautiful greeting card with our supporters. With artwork by Julia Lucey, this card is the perfect way to celebrating wild buffalo. A pack of ten 8.5" x 5.5" (4.25" x 5.5" folded) cards and envelopes cost just $15. ORDER TODAY and support Buffalo Field Campaign!
* Outreach Volunteers Wanted for Summer Tabling
Buffalo Field Campaign will begin our summer outreach inside Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in June, and we are looking for passionate, articulate folks who can help run our information table, discuss the buffalo with park visitors, and help build support for wild buffalo. BFC provides food, lodging, and transportation to and from our table in the Park. We ask for at least a two week commitment in order to accommodate training and orientation. This is a great opportunity to get involved and advocate for America's last wild buffalo!Please contact our volunteer coordinator for more information.
* Endangered Buffalo Fact of the Week
FACT: The decrease of such a vast bison population [estimated 60 million] to a small fraction of its original size in a relatively short time period may have caused a genetic bottleneck or founder effect. This occurs when the genetic diversity of a population is greatly reduced due to the small sample of bison, which were present in the surviving population. Within this small population genetic variation may be reduced further due to the male dominance effect, in which there is a disproportionate genetic contribution by the most dominate bulls with the founder herds, and little to no genetic contribution of less dominant males. Genetic drift, which is the random fixation of genes within a population, may occur because the founder population represents only a limited selection of the genetic diversity that once occurred in the original herds. Another factor that could limit the genetic variability in bison is the maternal effect, in which bison captured from the same herd have a higher probability of being related through maternal descent, and would therefore have a lower amount of genetic diversity.
(Geist, 1996; Boyd and Gates, 2006; Isenberg, 1997; Gates et al, 2010)
From Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks' "Background Information on Issues of Concern for Montana: Plains Bison Ecology, Management, and Conservation," June 2011
* BFC Wish List ~ Large Camping Tent
Our summer outreach crew could use a high quality, 8-person tent. A big 8 person tent would be able to house the tablers in the park with all of their things. Any style of tent would work as long as it's big. Contact our volunteer coordinator (LINK) if you can help! Thank you!
View BFC's Complete Wish List
* By the Numbers
AMERICAN BUFFALO ELIMINATED from the last wild population in the U.S. The last wild population is currently estimated at fewer than 3,700 individual buffalo. Wild bison are currently ecologically extinct throughout their native range in North America.
2011-2012 Total Buffalo Killed: 29
2011-2012 Government Capture: 37
2011-2012 Buffalo Released from Capture: 34
2011-2012 Government Slaughter:
2011-2012 Held for Government Experiment: 3
2011-2012 Died In Government Trap:
2011-2012 Miscarriage in Government Trap:
2011-2012 State & Treaty Hunts: 28
2011-2012 Quarantine:
2011-2012 Shot by Agents:
2011-2012 Killed by Angry Residents:
2011-2012 Highway Mortality: 1
2010-2011 Total: 227
2009-2010 Total: 7
2008-2009 Total: 22
2007-2008 Total: 1,631
* Total Since 2000: 4,004*
*includes lethal government action, trap-related fatalities, quarantine/experiments, hunts, highway mortality
* Last Words
The Calf and the Haze: A Buffalo's Song
By Ron Greene
I hit the ground running, On my birthday.
The ravage in hot pursuit, Their mine and mind as one.
My mothers were with me,
They did their best.
But dragons came from land and air,
And never turned away.
Faster, faster was the call,
But my legs were just too weak.
I limped along and steeled myself,
For what was just to come.
Then suddenly,
Just as my birth.
The predators were gone.
I spent the night in paradise,
The smell of grass,
The beat of Heart,
The milk of mother's song.
Then morning came,
The killers too,
And swept us down the trail,
On, on, to our distant doom.
I drooped along,
My spirit spent,
My listless legs,
Would carry me no more.
That night was long,
The song was gone,
Mother stood by and we both knew,
It would be my last,
The morning came,
With buzzards too,
As I lay beside the road.
And last I saw,
My eyes would give,
All that they had seen, to
The ravens nest,
The worms at rest,
And the Earth I hardly knew.
Do you have submissions for Last Words? Reply to this email. Thank you for all the poems, songs, quotes and stories you have been sending! Keep them coming!
Media & Outreach
Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.
BFC is the only group working in the field every day
in defense of the last wild buffalo population in the U.S.
KEEP BFC ON THE FRONTLINES
Join Buffalo Field Campaign -- It's Free!
Tell-a-Friend!
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| Marcia Lane | 1:18pm Jun 1 |
Now is the Time: Organizing Direct Action to Protect our Children from Predatory Priests and those who aid them
A Practical Guide on How To Document, Publish, Arrest and Expel Public Enemies
A Directive from ITCCS International, Brussels
June 1, 2012
On May 30, our global network of over fifty organizations issued an historic declaration to the Vatican and Joseph Ratzinger. (see www.itccs.org)
This statement announced our intent to globally publish the identity of known child raping clergy and their helpers, and to perform citizens’ arrests of these sick predators because of the continued refusal of police and judicial authorities to do so.
We have begun this campaign by gathering the evidence of the names, locations and pictures of such child rapists in a central archive whose evidence will be made public. If you have knowledge of such criminals, please forward it immediately to this email.
Armed with this information, the critical phase in our campaign will then commence: organizing Action Groups to publicly post the identity of these rapists and physically arrest and detain them so they cannot harm any more children.
These Child Protection Action Groups (CPAG) are now being formed in Canada, the USA, Ireland, Australia, Italy and England.
Each CPAG will consist of a disciplined team of between five and ten people led by a Coordinator. The entire team will receive training in common law procedure and protocol for undertaking citizens’ arrests.
The CPAGs are not disorganized “vigilantes”, but principled community protectors who will treat proven child rapists firmly and non-violently, and will remove them from their church and their office in full public view.
The CPAGs will not be disrupting church services but will quickly escort the child rapist from the building after declaring him to be a threat to public safety.
To be clear, the CPAGs will not be acting alone when they enter church property and detain child rapists, but will so as part of a larger public presence.
Our supporters will stage accompanying protests, sit-ins and occupations at the same time as the arrests are being made in order to alert the public and media, and to demonstrate how these actions are a self-defensive public safety measure and are legally necessary to ensure the safety of our children.
One of our ITCCS organizers in the eastern United States, for example, writes,
“There’s a convicted child molester preaching every Sunday in the local catholic church here in (blank). The local Bishop’s ignored all our letters and leaflets aboutthis guy, and so have the police. So now we’re going ahead and we'll defrock him in plain sight. We’ll confront him and tell him he has no right to be a priest, then strip him of his robe and vestments, right there, and escort him out of the church. I’ve seen the Mohawk women do that to their own corrupt chiefs. The public shaming always works best!”
This is the gist of our efforts: to prevent child rapists and the church officials who protect them from being able to operate any longer.
It’s important to remember that since churches are publicly funded organizations maintained through your taxes, churches are public space, and you therefore have every right to enter church property, especially if you suspect or know that child rapists and their protectors are operating in them.
During our actions, if the police are called by church officials and they arrive, a CPAG spokesperson will immediately approach them and read to them a public statement that calls upon the police to exercise their oath of public office and assist us in detaining a known child rapist who is a clear and present danger to children. They will be handed a Public Letter of Demand calling on them to do so.
If they refuse to respond and even begin to challenge our actions, they will then be formally deputized and instructed to assist us in arresting someone who is a clear danger to the community.
If the police nevertheless act to protect the rapist, they will have violated a public responsibility placed upon them, and will have thereby surrendered their right to hold their office. At that point under common law, they can be legally ignored. Any act by the police after that to prevent our defense of children will constitute an illegal assault and obstruction of justice, and they can be tried and convicted of these offenses.
For our own security and defense, every CPAG will be accompanied during their actions by legal observers and several videographers who will witness and record the entire course of events.
From our long experience, it is rare for the police to physically intervene in these situations – especially when the media and witnesses are present - since the church officials fear any possible damage to their property or reputations by engaging in direct confrontations with protestors. Normally, the cops simply stand by and watch, especially when a large crowd is present. So numbers and public exposure are our best allies.
As well, don’t forget that the CPAGs will be showing up at the churches unannounced, and will therefore be able to confront, detain and escort from the building the rapist before the police even arrive.
Nevertheless, tactically speaking, your CPAG may choose to mount a diversionary action to draw off the police if they do show up while the rapist is being detained – such as by staging a church occupation to coincide with the citizens’ arrest. This is especially advisable if your numbers are small.
Once your CPAG has successfully removed the rapist from the church premises and stripped him of his robes of office, and filmed the entire event, a CPAG representative will hand the rapist a formal Cease and Desist Restraining Order banning him from being within a hundred yards of the church in question. He is then to be released. We cannot thereforebe accused of kidnapping.
If the rapist ignores this Restraining Order, he can then be permanently detained, and any church officials who aid and abet him can themselves be placed under citizens’ arrest and the church permanently occupied as a public safety measure.
All of the recorded evidence of these actions will be posted on You Tube and on our archived website in order to alert the community to these individuals, and to encourage similar actions around the world.
If you wish to volunteer to be a part of a CPAG, contact this email or the ITCCS organizer in your area. A schedule of training events and other upcoming actions will be published atwww.itccs.org and sent to you by email.
The actions we take today will save the lives and sanity of tomorrow’s children. It is therefore our sacred duty to bring our deeds into conformity with our love for all children, by placing their well-being and safety before all other considerations. May that knowledge give you the courage to act!
Contact us directly for more information and assistance. For the children!
ITCCS Communique 1 June, 2012
Brussels
Child Protection Action Groups (CPAGs)
Aims:
1. Research, Document and Monitor child rapists in churches, and those who protect them
2. Publicly identify and name them
3. Arrest, defrock and banish them
4. Occupy churches and facilities that shelter or aid them
5. Connect with other CPAG’s and coordinate actions
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
A Practical Guide on How To Document, Publish, Arrest and Expel Public Enemies
A Directive from ITCCS International, Brussels
June 1, 2012
On May 30, our global network of over fifty organizations issued an historic declaration to the Vatican and Joseph Ratzinger. (see www.itccs.org)
This statement announced our intent to globally publish the identity of known child raping clergy and their helpers, and to perform citizens’ arrests of these sick predators because of the continued refusal of police and judicial authorities to do so.
We have begun this campaign by gathering the evidence of the names, locations and pictures of such child rapists in a central archive whose evidence will be made public. If you have knowledge of such criminals, please forward it immediately to this email.
Armed with this information, the critical phase in our campaign will then commence: organizing Action Groups to publicly post the identity of these rapists and physically arrest and detain them so they cannot harm any more children.
These Child Protection Action Groups (CPAG) are now being formed in Canada, the USA, Ireland, Australia, Italy and England.
Each CPAG will consist of a disciplined team of between five and ten people led by a Coordinator. The entire team will receive training in common law procedure and protocol for undertaking citizens’ arrests.
The CPAGs are not disorganized “vigilantes”, but principled community protectors who will treat proven child rapists firmly and non-violently, and will remove them from their church and their office in full public view.
The CPAGs will not be disrupting church services but will quickly escort the child rapist from the building after declaring him to be a threat to public safety.
To be clear, the CPAGs will not be acting alone when they enter church property and detain child rapists, but will so as part of a larger public presence.
Our supporters will stage accompanying protests, sit-ins and occupations at the same time as the arrests are being made in order to alert the public and media, and to demonstrate how these actions are a self-defensive public safety measure and are legally necessary to ensure the safety of our children.
One of our ITCCS organizers in the eastern United States, for example, writes,
“There’s a convicted child molester preaching every Sunday in the local catholic church here in (blank). The local Bishop’s ignored all our letters and leaflets aboutthis guy, and so have the police. So now we’re going ahead and we'll defrock him in plain sight. We’ll confront him and tell him he has no right to be a priest, then strip him of his robe and vestments, right there, and escort him out of the church. I’ve seen the Mohawk women do that to their own corrupt chiefs. The public shaming always works best!”
This is the gist of our efforts: to prevent child rapists and the church officials who protect them from being able to operate any longer.
It’s important to remember that since churches are publicly funded organizations maintained through your taxes, churches are public space, and you therefore have every right to enter church property, especially if you suspect or know that child rapists and their protectors are operating in them.
During our actions, if the police are called by church officials and they arrive, a CPAG spokesperson will immediately approach them and read to them a public statement that calls upon the police to exercise their oath of public office and assist us in detaining a known child rapist who is a clear and present danger to children. They will be handed a Public Letter of Demand calling on them to do so.
If they refuse to respond and even begin to challenge our actions, they will then be formally deputized and instructed to assist us in arresting someone who is a clear danger to the community.
If the police nevertheless act to protect the rapist, they will have violated a public responsibility placed upon them, and will have thereby surrendered their right to hold their office. At that point under common law, they can be legally ignored. Any act by the police after that to prevent our defense of children will constitute an illegal assault and obstruction of justice, and they can be tried and convicted of these offenses.
For our own security and defense, every CPAG will be accompanied during their actions by legal observers and several videographers who will witness and record the entire course of events.
From our long experience, it is rare for the police to physically intervene in these situations – especially when the media and witnesses are present - since the church officials fear any possible damage to their property or reputations by engaging in direct confrontations with protestors. Normally, the cops simply stand by and watch, especially when a large crowd is present. So numbers and public exposure are our best allies.
As well, don’t forget that the CPAGs will be showing up at the churches unannounced, and will therefore be able to confront, detain and escort from the building the rapist before the police even arrive.
Nevertheless, tactically speaking, your CPAG may choose to mount a diversionary action to draw off the police if they do show up while the rapist is being detained – such as by staging a church occupation to coincide with the citizens’ arrest. This is especially advisable if your numbers are small.
Once your CPAG has successfully removed the rapist from the church premises and stripped him of his robes of office, and filmed the entire event, a CPAG representative will hand the rapist a formal Cease and Desist Restraining Order banning him from being within a hundred yards of the church in question. He is then to be released. We cannot thereforebe accused of kidnapping.
If the rapist ignores this Restraining Order, he can then be permanently detained, and any church officials who aid and abet him can themselves be placed under citizens’ arrest and the church permanently occupied as a public safety measure.
All of the recorded evidence of these actions will be posted on You Tube and on our archived website in order to alert the community to these individuals, and to encourage similar actions around the world.
If you wish to volunteer to be a part of a CPAG, contact this email or the ITCCS organizer in your area. A schedule of training events and other upcoming actions will be published atwww.itccs.org and sent to you by email.
The actions we take today will save the lives and sanity of tomorrow’s children. It is therefore our sacred duty to bring our deeds into conformity with our love for all children, by placing their well-being and safety before all other considerations. May that knowledge give you the courage to act!
Contact us directly for more information and assistance. For the children!
ITCCS Communique 1 June, 2012
Brussels
Child Protection Action Groups (CPAGs)
Aims:
1. Research, Document and Monitor child rapists in churches, and those who protect them
2. Publicly identify and name them
3. Arrest, defrock and banish them
4. Occupy churches and facilities that shelter or aid them
5. Connect with other CPAG’s and coordinate actions
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
| itccs.org| The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
Joseph Ratzing |
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Cherokee Link Newsletter
*********************************************************
Osiyo,
The Cherokee Nation scholarship is approaching its deadline Friday June 8th. If you know of a Cherokee student that has not signed up with the Cherokee Nation Academic Works, please encourage them to go to https://cherokeenation.academicworks.com and click sign-up and then fill out the General Application.
Camp Cherokee Day Camps enrollment will be open till the first day of camp at the camp location you have chosen. To find out more about activities, camp dates and locations near you call (918) 453-5152 or visit: http://camp.cherokee.org
The committee meetings have been archived for Thursday, May 31 and have been made available to the public at: http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/Webcasts/Default.aspx
This is a call out to all Cherokee Artist that would like to compete for $12,000 in total prize money at the Sixth Cherokee National Holiday Art Show, to be held over Labor Day Weekend. Entries are being accepted now and will be open till Friday, Aug. 10. For more information go to: http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33039/Press_Article.aspx
Cherokee Nation
P.O. Box 948
Tahlequah, OK 74465
918 453-5000
*********************************************
********Cherokee Nation News*****************
*********************************************
Cherokee Nation sponsors 5K Moonlight Run benefiting Collinsville City Park
The Cherokee Nation is sponsoring the Moonlight Run, a 5K competitive run and 1K fun run to benefit Collinsville City Park improvements on Friday, June 8, as part of the tribe’s Wings series of races.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33072/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter271
Signups open for Cherokee National Holiday softball tournaments
Signups are open for the 2012 Cherokee National Holiday men’s and women’s fast pitch and coed softball tournaments to be held Friday through Sunday, Aug. 24–26, at the Cherokee Nation Softball Complex in Tahlequah.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33070/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter271
Little Ambassadors sought to represent Cherokee Nation
The 2011-2012 Winners of Cherokee Nation’s Little Ambassador Leadership Competition, shown left to right, Sammie Girty, Maggie Welsh, Cierra Fields , Lilli Jo Jordan and Hayden Girty.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33069/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter271
Sequoyah Seniors Named Gates Millennium Scholars
Four Sequoyah Schools seniors have been named Gates Millennium Scholars by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33068/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter271
Sequoyah Students Shine at National Science Fair
Three Sequoyah Schools students earned first place awards at the National American Indian Science and Engineering Fair in Albuquerque, N.M.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33067/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter271
Quilters sought for the 60th Cherokee National Holiday
Quilters young and old are invited to showcase their unique designs this Labor Day weekend at Cherokee Nation’s quilt show at the 60th Cherokee National Holiday in Tahlequah.
http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/33066/Press_Article.aspx?source=Newsletter271
************************************
******Other Links of Interest*******
************************************
Games - http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/Kid'sArea/KidsGames/Default.aspx?source=Newsletter271
Community Calendar - http://calendars.cherokee.org/CommunityCalendar.aspx?source=Newsletter271
RSS Feed - http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/RSSFeeds/Default.aspx?source=Newsletter271
Podcasts - http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/PodCasts/Default.aspx?source=Newsletter271
******************************
Osiyo,
The Cherokee Nation scholarship is approaching its deadline Friday June 8th. If you know of a Cherokee student that has not signed up with the Cherokee Nation Academic Works, please encourage them to go to https://cherokeenation.
Camp Cherokee Day Camps enrollment will be open till the first day of camp at the camp location you have chosen. To find out more about activities, camp dates and locations near you call (918) 453-5152 or visit: http://camp.cherokee.org
The committee meetings have been archived for Thursday, May 31 and have been made available to the public at: http://www.cherokee.org/
This is a call out to all Cherokee Artist that would like to compete for $12,000 in total prize money at the Sixth Cherokee National Holiday Art Show, to be held over Labor Day Weekend. Entries are being accepted now and will be open till Friday, Aug. 10. For more information go to: http://www.cherokee.org/
Cherokee Nation
P.O. Box 948
Tahlequah, OK 74465
918 453-5000
******************************
********Cherokee Nation News*****************
******************************
Cherokee Nation sponsors 5K Moonlight Run benefiting Collinsville City Park
The Cherokee Nation is sponsoring the Moonlight Run, a 5K competitive run and 1K fun run to benefit Collinsville City Park improvements on Friday, June 8, as part of the tribe’s Wings series of races.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Signups open for Cherokee National Holiday softball tournaments
Signups are open for the 2012 Cherokee National Holiday men’s and women’s fast pitch and coed softball tournaments to be held Friday through Sunday, Aug. 24–26, at the Cherokee Nation Softball Complex in Tahlequah.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Little Ambassadors sought to represent Cherokee Nation
The 2011-2012 Winners of Cherokee Nation’s Little Ambassador Leadership Competition, shown left to right, Sammie Girty, Maggie Welsh, Cierra Fields , Lilli Jo Jordan and Hayden Girty.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Sequoyah Seniors Named Gates Millennium Scholars
Four Sequoyah Schools seniors have been named Gates Millennium Scholars by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Sequoyah Students Shine at National Science Fair
Three Sequoyah Schools students earned first place awards at the National American Indian Science and Engineering Fair in Albuquerque, N.M.
http://www.cherokee.org/
Quilters sought for the 60th Cherokee National Holiday
Quilters young and old are invited to showcase their unique designs this Labor Day weekend at Cherokee Nation’s quilt show at the 60th Cherokee National Holiday in Tahlequah.
http://www.cherokee.org/
******************************
******Other Links of Interest*******
******************************
Games - http://www.cherokee.org/
Community Calendar - http://calendars.cherokee.org/
RSS Feed - http://www.cherokee.org/
Podcasts - http://www.cherokee.org/
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From the Eagle Watch
June 4, 2012
Xstrata has nickel and copper mines all over the world. They want to dig up all the minerals for the NWO military. They have a huge public relations campaign going. The reports from Peru put the lie to all they say and do.
The Inuit sellouts want to wake up!!
see below for more on the cartel.
Additional notes on Xstrata:
http://www.xstratacopper.com/EN/Operations/default.aspx
also in chile, argentina, peru, papua new guinea, australis
Canada
Southern Peru
In August 2004 Xstrata Copper succeeded in its bid to acquire an option to develop the highly prospective Las Bambas copper district, giving us a foothold in southern Peru. Our initial analysis of regional business development opportunities resulted in the acquisition in May 2006 of the Tintaya copper mine, also in southern Peru, from BHP Billiton. These two assets have provided a significant platform for Xstrata Copper to grow a substantial mining business in southern Peru. Xstrata Copper’s total Mineral Resources in the region, including the Tintaya orebody and the Antapaccay, Coroccohuayco and Las Bambas deposits, have now grown to over 2.1 billion tonnes at an average grade of 0.77% copper.
Falconbridge
Just a few months after the Tintaya acquisition, Xstrata took control of Canadian mining company Falconbridge on 21 August 2006. This acquisition continued the rapid transformation of Xstrata Copper into a major player in the copper industry. The former Falconbridge copper operations established a strong centre for Xstrata Copper in northern Chile, with the Altonorte smelter, the Lomas Bayas mine and a 44% share of the giant Collahuasi mine. The acquisition also strengthened our position in Peru with joint ownership of the Antamina mine through a 33.75% shareholding and established a significant presence for Xstrata Copper in Canada with full ownership of the Kidd Mine and Metallurgical Sites, the Horne smelter, the Canadian Copper Refinery (CCR) and Noranda Recycling.
Xstrata Copper today
Today Xstrata Copper has operations and projects in eight countries across the globe. The business unit’s mining and metallurgical operations are managed through five operating divisions that are centred near the operating sites in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile and Peru. In addition, we have a world class portfolio of development projects to replenish and grow our production pipeline: El Pachón in Argentina, Las Bambas and Antapaccay in Peru, Tampakan in the Philippines and Frieda River in Papua New Guinea.
Our portfolio of near term expansion projects will increase our annual copper production by 60% to 1.5 million tonnes of copper by 2015 through the construction of five brownfield expansion projects and the Las Bambas greenfield project.
http://www.xstratanickel.com/EN/Pages/default.aspx
Who Are We
Xstrata Nickel’s mining operations include mines and processing facilities in Ontario and Québec, Canada; a ferronickel mine and processing facility in Bonao, Dominican Republic; high-grade sulphide mines and a processing facility in Western Australia; and a refinery in Kristiansand, Norway. Xstrata Nickel also has a highly promising portfolio of growth projects, including Koniambo in New Caledonia, Kabanga in Tanzania, and Araguaia in Brazil.
http://www.republicofmining.com/2011/06/22/news-release-xstrata-nickel-shares-15-2-million-of-raglans-operating-profit-with-inuit-communities/
NEWS RELEASE: Xstrata Nickel shares $15.2 million of Raglan’s operating profit with Inuit communities
posted in Aboriginal Mining, Xstrata PLC |
www.xstratanickel.com
Québec City (Québec) – June 1, 2011
Xstrata Nickel Raglan Mine today presented a cheque in the amount of Cdn$15.2 million to the Makivik Corporation and the Inuit communities of Kangiqsujuaq and Salluit. This sum represents the Inuit communities’ share of the profits generated in 2010 by the Raglan nickel mine operation, located in Nunavik, Northern Québec.
To date, more than Cdn$100 million in profit-sharing payments have been directed to an Inuit trust fund for economic and community development through the Raglan Agreement.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@June 4, 2012
Xstrata has nickel and copper mines all over the world. They want to dig up all the minerals for the NWO military. They have a huge public relations campaign going. The reports from Peru put the lie to all they say and do.
The Inuit sellouts want to wake up!!
see below for more on the cartel.
The Peruvian government declared a 30-day state of emergency in a highland province on Monday 28th May after two people were killed and dozens of police injured during land protests.
Around 30 riot police were hurt in clashes with residents near Cuzco. The two dead are believed to be protesters who suffocated on tear gas.
The protesters claim the Tinaya copper mine owned by Swiss-based Xstrata is polluting local water supplies and making farm animals ill. Protesters have been blocking road access to the mine for a week in a bid to prevent the transnational contaminating two rivers.
Xstrata, the world's fourth-largest copper producer, denied it was polluting. But an environmental study commissioned by the local Roman Catholic church conducted last August and September found high levels of arsenic, as well as copper, mercury and other heavy metals in soil and water samples.
[meanwhile, Xstrata is currently undergoing a merger with unscrupulous commodity trading and mining corporation Glencore in a deal worth $60 Billion].
Peru Mine Clashes Heating Up
May 28th, 2012
Ref: http://www.rootforce.org/2012/05/28/peru-mine-clashes- heating-up/
In the past week, the battle over the future of mining in Peru has heated up, leading President Ollanta Humala to declare martial law for the second time in the 10 months he has been in office.
First, Newmont Mining Corp. announced that it is pushing back the planned start date for its $4.8 billion Minas Conga copper and gold mine in the Cajamarca Region of Peru until early 2017, and reducing its investment in the project by more than a billion dollars over the next two years.
Opposition by locals concerned over the mine's environmental impacts (particularly local water supplies) forced the project to be placed on hold in November 2011 with a variety of tactics including road blockades and destruction of company equipment. President Humala responded by declaring martial law in the region, and several of his ministers resigned in disgrace over the government's handling of the unrest.
The government then reviewed the mine's environmental impact study and requested that the company revisit its plans. The government is still waiting to hear whether the company intends to make any changes. Mine opponents have warned that if the mine is not canceled altogether by Thursday, they will re-launch their protests.
Meanwhile, two anti-mining protesters were shot dead by police in clashes in the Espinar Province of the Cusco Region. The protests were spurred by outrage over water contamination and the sickening of farm animals caused by Xstrata's Tinaya copper mine. Following the clashes, which also resulted in the injury of at least 70 people, including 30 police officers, the Humala government declared martial law in the region.
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This e-mail was brought to you through the LegacyofColonialism Forum e-mail list.
(Web Ref. http://www.tlio.org.uk/issues/legacy/index.html ).
The Legacy of Colonialism: pertaining to the history of colonialism and its ongoing affects including the continued marginalization of Indigenous peoples and the preservation of their heritage, the biased practices of the IMF, criminal and monopolizing acts of transnational corporations, non-mutually beneficial international trade practices, self-seeking international military coersion on the part of first world nations particularly the United States and Israel, state sponsored terrorism, & globalization. The Legacy of Colonialism Forum E-mail list is for activists for positive social and environmental change, progressive NGOs, social-justice/reparation/drop-the-debt campaigners, members of land-rights movements, researchers and grassroot development workers all over the world, to share information in recognition of the following: how multinational profits and the North's capitalist advancement (led by the US industrial-military-corporate complex) at the expense of the Ne o-Colonial state, is sustained by some of the above mentioned factors - plus political manipulation within the machinations of tyrannical empire building, the Dollar Empire, and the imperialism and economic fraud of global financial institutions (the IMF & World Bank), and the global banking system.
Additional notes on Xstrata:
http://www.xstratacopper.com/
Canada
Southern Peru
In August 2004 Xstrata Copper succeeded in its bid to acquire an option to develop the highly prospective Las Bambas copper district, giving us a foothold in southern Peru. Our initial analysis of regional business development opportunities resulted in the acquisition in May 2006 of the Tintaya copper mine, also in southern Peru, from BHP Billiton. These two assets have provided a significant platform for Xstrata Copper to grow a substantial mining business in southern Peru. Xstrata Copper’s total Mineral Resources in the region, including the Tintaya orebody and the Antapaccay, Coroccohuayco and Las Bambas deposits, have now grown to over 2.1 billion tonnes at an average grade of 0.77% copper.
Falconbridge
Just a few months after the Tintaya acquisition, Xstrata took control of Canadian mining company Falconbridge on 21 August 2006. This acquisition continued the rapid transformation of Xstrata Copper into a major player in the copper industry. The former Falconbridge copper operations established a strong centre for Xstrata Copper in northern Chile, with the Altonorte smelter, the Lomas Bayas mine and a 44% share of the giant Collahuasi mine. The acquisition also strengthened our position in Peru with joint ownership of the Antamina mine through a 33.75% shareholding and established a significant presence for Xstrata Copper in Canada with full ownership of the Kidd Mine and Metallurgical Sites, the Horne smelter, the Canadian Copper Refinery (CCR) and Noranda Recycling.
Xstrata Copper today
Today Xstrata Copper has operations and projects in eight countries across the globe. The business unit’s mining and metallurgical operations are managed through five operating divisions that are centred near the operating sites in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile and Peru. In addition, we have a world class portfolio of development projects to replenish and grow our production pipeline: El Pachón in Argentina, Las Bambas and Antapaccay in Peru, Tampakan in the Philippines and Frieda River in Papua New Guinea.
Our portfolio of near term expansion projects will increase our annual copper production by 60% to 1.5 million tonnes of copper by 2015 through the construction of five brownfield expansion projects and the Las Bambas greenfield project.
http://www.xstratanickel.com/
Xstrata Nickel’s mining operations include mines and processing facilities in Ontario and Québec, Canada; a ferronickel mine and processing facility in Bonao, Dominican Republic; high-grade sulphide mines and a processing facility in Western Australia; and a refinery in Kristiansand, Norway. Xstrata Nickel also has a highly promising portfolio of growth projects, including Koniambo in New Caledonia, Kabanga in Tanzania, and Araguaia in Brazil.
http://www.republicofmining.
posted in Aboriginal Mining, Xstrata PLC |
www.xstratanickel.com
Québec City (Québec) – June 1, 2011
Xstrata Nickel Raglan Mine today presented a cheque in the amount of Cdn$15.2 million to the Makivik Corporation and the Inuit communities of Kangiqsujuaq and Salluit. This sum represents the Inuit communities’ share of the profits generated in 2010 by the Raglan nickel mine operation, located in Nunavik, Northern Québec.
To date, more than Cdn$100 million in profit-sharing payments have been directed to an Inuit trust fund for economic and community development through the Raglan Agreement.
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| Marcia Lane | 3:22pm Jun 5 |
Communique from The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS)
The Mass Graves at Brantford:
An Update from the ITCCS Indigenous Elders Advisory Council and Kevin Annett
June 5, 2012
The first successful uncovering of apparent mass graves at a former Indian residential school in Canada began in October, 2011 at the “Mush Hole” Mohawk Institute: the former Church of England (Anglican) facility in Brantford, Ontario.
After being formally authorized by Mohawk elders to begin the inquiry, two teams associated with the ITCCS successfully surveyed the grounds of the Mush Hole with Ground Penetrating Radar. This survey revealed massive soil dislocation in areas where eyewitnesses describe seeing burials of children who died in the Mush Hole.
Based on this discovery, the ITCCS teams sunk two small test digs which revealed positive evidence of burials. These included remains of clothing and buttons positively identified as coming from school uniforms, as well as bone samples which turned out to be primarily animal mixed with probable human remains of small children.
The very success of this dig, and its kindling of similar independent excavations at two other former residential schools during 2012, has sparked a counter-attack by the government of Canada and the Anglican Church which has caused the Brantford inquiry to be put on temporary hold.
This counter-attack has followed the usual pattern of divide and conquer tactics utilizing the already factionalized atmosphere in the Six Nations community in Brantford.
Early in 2012 after the test digs had uncovered the first bone samples, a government-funded operative named Jan Longboat recruited and paid one of the tribal members who had authorized the ITCCS inquiry, Frank Miller, to begin criticizing the inquiry and calling for the expulsion of ITCCS field worker Kevin Annett from the Mohawk community.
Miller successfully factionalized the original group of authorizing Mohawks by stoking fear and spreading state-sponsored smears about Kevin Annett in the community, despite Kevin having been adopted into the Mohawk Nation and given a name.
Nevertheless, to solidify the ITCCS inquiry, in late March, 2012, a new group of ten Mohawk elders and Mush Hole survivors issued a new statement authorizing Kevin Annett and ITCCS to proceed with the Mush Hole inquiry and excavation.
To counter further disruptions and rally native supporters, ITCCS has also established a seven-member Indigenous Elders Advisory Council with representatives from the Cree, Anishnabe, Haudenosaunee, Squamish, Mohawk, Wyandotte, and Maliseet Nations.
The Mush Hole inquiry will be proceeding under the authority of the ten authorizing Mohawk elders, along with a new international team of archaeological and forensic specialists who will seek to recover and identify the remains of children who died at the Mush Hole, for analysis and traditional re-burial.
This inquiry is now joined by similar independent excavations on Cree and Squamish territory, authorized by survivors at the site of residential schools in Ontario and British Columbia.
Obviously, this initiative is a direct challenge to the present state and church-funded whitewash known as Canada’s “truth and reconciliation commission”, which has no mandate to lay criminal charges or search for the remains or cause of death of the 50,000 and more children who died in these schools.
We can therefore expect further efforts by Canada and its guilty churches to disrupt and discredit the independent search for the missing children at the Mush Hole, and elsewhere. And so we urge all people of conscience and all survivors of Canada’s genocide to rally behind our efforts, and to launch similar digs in their own communities.
For further updates and information, see www.itccs.org and contactgenocidetribunal@yahoo.ca .
ITCCS International Communique, 5 June 2012
Brussels
Kevin Annett (left) is adopted into Mohawk Nation, Brantford, 2011
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we can not know it.
- Blaise Pascal
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
The Mass Graves at Brantford:
An Update from the ITCCS Indigenous Elders Advisory Council and Kevin Annett
June 5, 2012
The first successful uncovering of apparent mass graves at a former Indian residential school in Canada began in October, 2011 at the “Mush Hole” Mohawk Institute: the former Church of England (Anglican) facility in Brantford, Ontario.
After being formally authorized by Mohawk elders to begin the inquiry, two teams associated with the ITCCS successfully surveyed the grounds of the Mush Hole with Ground Penetrating Radar. This survey revealed massive soil dislocation in areas where eyewitnesses describe seeing burials of children who died in the Mush Hole.
Based on this discovery, the ITCCS teams sunk two small test digs which revealed positive evidence of burials. These included remains of clothing and buttons positively identified as coming from school uniforms, as well as bone samples which turned out to be primarily animal mixed with probable human remains of small children.
The very success of this dig, and its kindling of similar independent excavations at two other former residential schools during 2012, has sparked a counter-attack by the government of Canada and the Anglican Church which has caused the Brantford inquiry to be put on temporary hold.
This counter-attack has followed the usual pattern of divide and conquer tactics utilizing the already factionalized atmosphere in the Six Nations community in Brantford.
Early in 2012 after the test digs had uncovered the first bone samples, a government-funded operative named Jan Longboat recruited and paid one of the tribal members who had authorized the ITCCS inquiry, Frank Miller, to begin criticizing the inquiry and calling for the expulsion of ITCCS field worker Kevin Annett from the Mohawk community.
Miller successfully factionalized the original group of authorizing Mohawks by stoking fear and spreading state-sponsored smears about Kevin Annett in the community, despite Kevin having been adopted into the Mohawk Nation and given a name.
Nevertheless, to solidify the ITCCS inquiry, in late March, 2012, a new group of ten Mohawk elders and Mush Hole survivors issued a new statement authorizing Kevin Annett and ITCCS to proceed with the Mush Hole inquiry and excavation.
To counter further disruptions and rally native supporters, ITCCS has also established a seven-member Indigenous Elders Advisory Council with representatives from the Cree, Anishnabe, Haudenosaunee, Squamish, Mohawk, Wyandotte, and Maliseet Nations.
The Mush Hole inquiry will be proceeding under the authority of the ten authorizing Mohawk elders, along with a new international team of archaeological and forensic specialists who will seek to recover and identify the remains of children who died at the Mush Hole, for analysis and traditional re-burial.
This inquiry is now joined by similar independent excavations on Cree and Squamish territory, authorized by survivors at the site of residential schools in Ontario and British Columbia.
Obviously, this initiative is a direct challenge to the present state and church-funded whitewash known as Canada’s “truth and reconciliation commission”, which has no mandate to lay criminal charges or search for the remains or cause of death of the 50,000 and more children who died in these schools.
We can therefore expect further efforts by Canada and its guilty churches to disrupt and discredit the independent search for the missing children at the Mush Hole, and elsewhere. And so we urge all people of conscience and all survivors of Canada’s genocide to rally behind our efforts, and to launch similar digs in their own communities.
For further updates and information, see www.itccs.org and contactgenocidetribunal@yahoo.ca .
ITCCS International Communique, 5 June 2012
Brussels
Kevin Annett (left) is adopted into Mohawk Nation, Brantford, 2011
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we can not know it.
- Blaise Pascal
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
| itccs.org| The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
Joseph Ratzinge |
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| Marcia Lane | 10:21pm Jun 6 |
If this doesn't make you vomit, shout and scream, and smash up your local catholic church, then nothing will! Incredible!
Kev
Gerald T. Slevin: Philadelphia Criminal Trial Has Now Fully Exposed Catholic Leadership Worldwide
http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2012/06/gerald-t-slevin-philadelphia-criminal.html?m=1
Kev
Gerald T. Slevin: Philadelphia Criminal Trial Has Now Fully Exposed Catholic Leadership Worldwide
http://bilgrimage.blogspot.
 | Bilgrimage: Gerald T. Slevin: Philadelphia Criminal Trial Has Now Fully Exposed Catholic Leadership.
Religion and Public Life in the Southern Crossroads Region: The . Walnut Creek: Alta Mira, 2004. E... |
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| Marcia Lane | 10:55pm Jun 6 |
Daphie Pooyak,Nakota-Cree with Kevin Annett
By Hiddenfromhistory
In Politics Progressive
Airdate:Sat, June 9, 2012 04:00PM Call in to speak with the host
(347) 857-3524
Skype
If you liked this show, you can follow Hiddenfromhistory.
H:70431
S:3323111
Upcoming
Kevin will start off the show with updates on the current scandal in the on going Philadelphia,Pa. Catholic Church court cases and their cover ups of sexual abuse to children in their parishes.
Daphie Pooyak is a Nakota Cree woman from the Sweet Grass First Nation. She works for the Dept. Of Corrections in Canada as well as other cultural organizations and holds cultural classes to young Native inmates and school children to bring hope and a clearer understanding of First Nations Traditions and protocol .
She will be discussing the way our people were before colonization and what it has done to our spirituality in today's times, the difference between organized religions and Native Spirituality , Native Prophecies and the changing of times that we are walking in today.
Daphie also will be talking about the way she teaches the children and teens how to listen to their bodies, it's reactions, the spirit voices and heed what they feel and why they should do so.
Panel: Kevin Annett-Host,Russ Letica- co host, Bill Annett and Producer Marcie Lane
www.blogtalkradio.com/hiddenfromhistory
By Hiddenfromhistory
In Politics Progressive
Airdate:Sat, June 9, 2012 04:00PM Call in to speak with the host
(347) 857-3524
Skype
If you liked this show, you can follow Hiddenfromhistory.
H:70431
S:3323111
Upcoming
Kevin will start off the show with updates on the current scandal in the on going Philadelphia,Pa. Catholic Church court cases and their cover ups of sexual abuse to children in their parishes.
Daphie Pooyak is a Nakota Cree woman from the Sweet Grass First Nation. She works for the Dept. Of Corrections in Canada as well as other cultural organizations and holds cultural classes to young Native inmates and school children to bring hope and a clearer understanding of First Nations Traditions and protocol .
She will be discussing the way our people were before colonization and what it has done to our spirituality in today's times, the difference between organized religions and Native Spirituality , Native Prophecies and the changing of times that we are walking in today.
Daphie also will be talking about the way she teaches the children and teens how to listen to their bodies, it's reactions, the spirit voices and heed what they feel and why they should do so.
Panel: Kevin Annett-Host,Russ Letica- co host, Bill Annett and Producer Marcie Lane
www.blogtalkradio.com/
| Kevin Annett Online Radio by Hiddenfromhistory
Telling the Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. Host: Kevin Annett and Ru... |
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| Marcia Lane | 8:20pm Jun 7 |
By way of an introduction: Why Do We Tolerate the Destruction of Children, and Those Who Are Responsible?
I wrote the following piece, The Forgiveness Fallacy, because my life has reached an impasse, and a crisis. Like the proverbial Job, no human answers have satisfied by grieving heart and soul - my simple “why?”
All of my advocacy, “care giving” and protests on behalf of victims of torture for decades has brought me to the stark but undeniable realization that the systematic destruction of children by institutions of church and state is not in practice considered a criminal offense, and worse, is treated with tolerant indifference by the citizenry.
I am searching for the reason why we stand by and watch our children get slaughtered, and so easily forgive their killers. This search is leading me into the deepest entrails of my own culture, its history, and its hidden-in-plain-sight “poisonous pedagogy”, to quote Alice Miller: a system that deliberately crushes human autonomy and joy at a tender age, and then acclimatizes us to our own violation as children, making us harsh reflections of what killed our innocence.
Welcome to my search. But a warning, from another bold explorer, Oscar Wilde: Those who look beneath the surface of things do so at their own risk.
- Kevin Daniel Annett, June 2012
The Forgiveness Fallacy: Standing by our Painful Truth
By Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.
Whenever my abusive boyfriend wanted to make up with me, he’d tell me he was sorry for beating me up, and naturally, I’d forgive him. That was just a green light for him to start beating me up all over again.
Carol M., Vancouver
By refusing to forgive, I give up my illusions.
Alice Miller, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence
Harry Wilson is still alive, somehow. He is homeless, starving, plagued by alcoholism and drug addiction, and regularly beaten and robbed on Vancouver’s meanest streets. Yet neither his present suffering, nor his childhood rape and torture by a United Church clergyman with an electric cattle prod, has caused him to collapse, as it has most of his fellow survivors from the death camps called Canadian Indian Residential Schools.
Very few of these others have ever found their voice, but Harry has: and when he speaks of his life, he always ends by saying the same thing:
“I’ll never forgive those bastards for what they did to me.”
Harry Wilson proves to me something I have observed over many years as a street counselor and practicing clergyman: that the people who endure torture with a semblance of self-respect are those who have never forgiven what was done to them, especially as a child.
I’ve recently begun to ask counselors and other “helping” professionals why they believe that a traumatized man or woman must forgive their abuser if they are to become well. I have yet to receive a clear or logical answer. Rather, it is simply a self-evident and unquestioned assumption of these “experts” that “forgiveness” is indispensable to recovery from any form of torture or abuse.
In reality, when we look beneath this surface conjecture, we find that the exact opposite is true: namely, that the most basic requirement of commencing recovery from any pain or trauma is to never surrender our capacity to remember and name the wrong and the wrongdoer, but rather to be able to freely speak about it and express our natural outrage at what has happened to us. And yet precisely such a surrender and self-silencing is required for us to undertake the gesture of “forgiving”, which in practice means to inwardly resign oneself to having been tortured at the hands of another who has invariably escaped justice or accountability for his wrong.
According to the dominant religious, medical and psychological paradigm in our culture, “forgiving” a tormenter is inexplicably framed as a unilateral, non-reciprocal act on the part of the victim that does not require the victimizer to change. “Forgiveness” is seen as a simple end in itself that will somehow magically bring about “healing”, rather than in reality being the start of a long, painful process of change that prevents the abuse from re-occurring.
The fact that, under this dominant model, the abuse can continue, and is actually encouraged to continue, doesn’t seem to count for as much as the need for supplication and self-abasement by the one who has been abused. In short, modern “therapists” seem intent on subjecting victims of trauma to precisely what is needed to sustain them in a state of unalleviated humiliation and non-recovery.
Anger and the refusal to “let go” of our violation is seen by such therapists as a hindrance to “moving on”, as if not accommodating to one’s wronged condition is the source of one’s problem. “Forgive and forget, and you will be better” is the unchallengeable secular creed of counseling psychology. The onus, in other words, is placed upon the victim, and not the victimizer, to change.
Why?
It is alarming to the extent that so-called “helping” professionals base their methods not upon provable truths but on this partisan siding with the abuser: a highly ideological position that flows from an unquestioned and unassailable Christian moralism - specifically, the underlying assumption that there is something wrong and unhealthy about challenging or confronting one’s abuse and abusers.
In this approach, there seems to be endless room for “reconciliation” and “forgiveness” by the victim, but just so much time and space allowed for the naming of the full and terrible truth: as if the sheep can only be “reconciled” with the wolf except by agreeing to be eaten over and over again.
More people than I care to remember have told me how their counselors have told them that healing is only possible by moving beyond their past, “having closure”, and learning to live with the injustices and betrayals done to them. Remarkably, a victim of violence is thereby being asked to repress the memory of the crime and disassociate their life from its consequences: precisely what one should not do if one is to come to grips with a traumatic experience, and not be complicit in aiding the concealment of a crime.
Torture and rape victims are told over and over by modern “therapy” that they are somehow damaging or belittling themselves by not forgiving and forgetting those who harmed them. And so “closure” means, in practice, closing off forever one’s memories, legitimate anger, and the capacity to secure justice and personal vindication.
It is pretty clear whose interests such a self-destructive approaches actually serves.
In the case of aboriginal survivors of Christian genocide, such a charade of “healing” is an obvious political maneuver by government and church-paid therapists to sideline and prevent lawsuits and even more hazardous responses of the survivors. But the argument is the same, whether for aboriginal or non-native refugees from childhood rape and torture: the abuser is not responsible for changing, and must ultimately be appeased and placated by being forgiven by his victims.
The fact that this attitude is so universal, and that the capacity to “forgive” their torturers is held up as some sort of qualifying morality test for victims, suggests that it arises from something very basic. I suggest that this something is the collective, fearful memory of parental retaliation: a fear that gives rise to our entire structure of personal and societal morality in European Christian culture which is based on a dominator, “winner and loser” model of social relationships.
In a nutshell, that religious-based morality states that goodness consists of respecting and obeying constituted authority and one’s elders. By definition, one cannot be wronged or abused by those in such authority because they are superior to us, and thus, are incapable of being in error in relation to us or guilty of a crime.
This explains, in part, why no prominent politician, church leader or other father-figure ever goes to jail or even be held accountable for the crimes and murders committed by their institution, when the law clearly requires them to be, since the terrorizing of the innocent by the mighty is in practice not only legitimate, but a functionally necessary part of any hierarchical social order.
The template of such elite-worshiping morality, of course, is the Biblical message that a “rebellious” humanity and all of creation is being punished by an all-wise father-figure “god” because his instructions were disobeyed by our ancestors. Yet the same punishing deity offers us a way back into his graces if we will return to our original unthinking state of obedience through our blind faith in his son Christ – and in those who claim to “represent” him. If we reject this one-time offer, however, we are damned for eternity as amoral and evil people.
In this Christian paradigm, we are all inherently lost and sick souls, but we can become “moral” and well again through obedience to those powerful and dominating figures who know better than we do, whether familial, religious or political leaders. In short, morality and well being means unflagging obedience and conformity to the very power that harms and endangers us.
To kiss the hand that strikes you makes no sense, at the best of times. But the absolute mandate to do precisely that pervades all of our thinking and social practice, however subtly it is disguised or elaborately it is rationalized. And so it is hardly surprising that the pressure to conform to the unchallengeable interests of authority figures conditions virtually every aspect of our lives, from religion to political activism to social and family relationships.
By this scheme, humanity is divided into the dominators and the subjugated. In our western religious-philosophical tradition, one cannot envision anything – and in fact, nothing is allowed to operate in any substantial way – outside the bipolar dynamic between the dominator (abuser-winner) and the accommodator (the abused-loser) personalities.
Even if we somehow disregard the fact that this is the prevailing paradigm of Euro-Christian culture, it remains a common and lingering belief that we must personally forgive a wrong done to us if we are to avoid a crippling resentment and thirst for revenge.
This attitude is especially prevalent in not only Christian circles but in allegedly “secular” treatment centers, where it’s routinely espoused that “I must forgive not for the sake of another, but for my own sake.” And after all, Jesus himself in various scriptures explicitly seems to condone an absolute forgiving of all those who harm us.
In reality, the word “forgiveness” in the New Testament, the Greek word aphiemi, is not an absolute moral term, but is akin to the Biblical Hebrew word for “repentance”, shub, which means to turn around and walk in a completely different direction. Jesus was saying, simply, to not be like the person who has harmed us, but rather, to be different. This is a radically dissimilar thing than saying, be reconciled with one who has harmed you. Indeed, it actually means the opposite: to leave and be separated from such a person.
Further, even on the level of the moralistic claim that forgiving those who trespass against us bestows a sort of psychic and personal cleansing, the empirical evidence does not bear this out.
To try to forgive one’s abuser is to deny our most basic common sense and our capacity to freely express our feelings and defend ourselves from further attacks. Unilateral “forgiveness” is not only unhealthy and suicidal, but fosters the illusion that a wrong is somehow wiped clean by killing in oneself the desire to protect our dignity and seek restitution for our pain.
On the contrary, it’s clear that when we forgive another person, we must not only repress our natural feelings but deny what we know is true for the sake of a supposed settlement with an abuser who usually shows little or no remorse for his action.
In practice, such a resolution is rarely achieved, and yet the desperate “forgiver” cannot recognize or acknowledge this simple fact, and is encouraged to blame himself for not finding a settlement with his adversary. As a result of such masochistic assumptions, the victim becomes entrenched in an even deeper denial about his own condition, like any battered child who keeps proclaiming, “I’ve told my abusive father I love him! Why does he keep beating me?”
In this manner, the cycle of abuse and torture continues.
To accept on blind faith the efficacy and “healing power” of unilateral forgiveness is merely another form of repression and denial of one’s actual condition. By repressing one’s own truth for the sake of a phony unanimity with an abuser, the abused person must immerse himself in a permanently dissociated mental state to convince himself that his act of “forgiveness” has both redeemed his abuse and reformed his abuser – neither of which is true.
For modern “therapists” to demand such a neurotic and fragmented psyche in those who have survived abuse and torture is not only sadistic, but merely continues that affliction under another name. And yet, aided and abetted by such a fraudulent model of “therapy”, this destructive pathology is imposed most strongly on those people who have suffered most severely, individually and collectively, at the hands of others.
I witnessed this last year, when a strange and sad gathering of aboriginal people assembled on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to unilaterally offer to the government of Canada a so-called “Forgiveness Charter” in the name, absurdly, of everyone who ever attended an Indian residential school, the dead as well as the living.
The event was sponsored, predictably, by the very churches that ran the death camps called “schools”, acting through various puppet aboriginal politicians and preachers. But the rally was filled with hundreds of everyday survivors of rape and torture in these institutions: people who sincerely believed that their unilateral “forgiving” of the government would make everything better.
The very fact that the “Charter” was addressed not to those who are actually responsible for the residential schools and their crimes – the Catholic and Protestant churches themselves – spoke volumes of the deceitful and obscuring purpose of the event. Nor did the enormous pretense and travesty of publicly absolving murderers for a crime on behalf of the silent and slaughtered victims who have no say in the matter seemed not to have occurred to anyone at the rally, or to the slavish national media that widely and uncritically reported the charade.
Nevertheless, what I described earlier as the innate dread of parental retaliation that so molds our society’s notion of well being and morality was rampantly present at the Forgiveness Charter Rally. Each aboriginal speaker implored his fellow survivors of Christian terror to believe that much harder in Christianity, to love those who had harmed them, and to completely absolve both church and state for all the wrongs they had committed against native people: even the massacre of children.
The fear in the speakers’ eyes and voices was palpable that day, as was their pitiful hope that their torturers would approve of their words, and stop their reign of terror against them. I have seen the same look in every battered woman who is convinced that just a bit more love from her will still the blows of her husband. The hopes of the eternal victim, robbed of their own voice and the capacity to confront and then depart from their abuser, are always the same – and are never realized.
An Alternative
What would a genuine recovery, geared to the needs of the victims themselves, look like? I have given such recovery the name “Aletheia Therapy”, from the Greek word for Truth.
Aletheia means that which is not concealed, but is seen and expressed as it really is. Such genuineness is at the core of all life and recovery, but is accessible only through complete self-honesty and remembrance in a climate free of intimidation and domination.
Rather than the Christian paradigm that sees humanity as inherently debased and flawed, and in need of continual correction by a wiser external authority, Aletheia Therapy arises from the Natural Law axiom that every man and woman is born as a complete and sufficient entity who holds within themselves the key to what is necessary for their own health and recovery. Since the truth is indeed within us, it is only by remembering who we are and what we have experienced in its totality that we can find ourselves and our wholeness again.
This approach is radically in line with the teachings of Jesus, and ironically, radically counter posed to the heritage of Christianity and western patriarchy, and its authoritarian insistence that we respect and reconcile with our abuser-dominator.
If we begin by rejecting such a moralistic view or “forgiveness imperative” in dealing with our own pain and trauma, and begin from the first and fundamental necessity of knowing our own truth by always retaining our capacity to speak freely for ourselves about who and what has caused our affliction, we can avoid the self-defeating pitfalls of silencing ourselves and burying our feelings for the sake of our abusers.
By not worrying about forgiveness, we free ourselves from any illusion about our actual condition, and we retain our capacity to speak freely about what we feel and know is true. What I have observed in trauma healing circles, time and again, is that only when victims have reached such a stage of inner freedom can genuine recovery from self-isolating destructiveness begin.
In the words of Alice Miller,
To live with one’s own truth is to be at home with oneself. That is the opposite of isolation.
My fondest and most inspiring memory of such actual recovery occurred not in a healing circle at all, but at a public protest inside the sanctuary of the Roman Catholic cathedral in downtown Vancouver just before Easter in 2007, when aboriginal survivors of torture in Catholic residential schools held aloft their banners and signs, and spoke to the congregation of the crimes committed against them by their church.
The same men and women who could not enter a catholic church or see a crucifix without becoming nauseous because of the awful memories of their torture as children strode bravely and calmly amidst the pews that day and handed leaflets to the dumbstruck crowd. Remarkably, these survivors faced down the threats of policemen and priests that day, and stated their case to them without a trace of fear; and then they peacefully left the building to the sound of their own drum beats, laughter, cheers and joyful triumph.
Outside, as we all hugged and congratulated one another, a permanent cloud of despair seemed to lift from the native men and women gathered there, and during the following week, several of them actually stopped drinking and doing drugs, for the first time in many years.
What had caused this incredible change that day was summed up by one of the victors, a native man named William Combes, when he said later on my radio program,
I thought I was going to crap out and let you all down, but then I saw you outside the church and it gave me the courage to walk up those steps with you. Then inside the church you all kept me safe. Just doing the right thing with everybody made me feel safe. Just speaking the truth to those bastards and facing down the priests, then I didn’t fear them. I didn’t give a shit anymore what they could do to me. I was angrier at what they’d done to all my little friends at residential school. I felt like a man for the first time ever, maybe.
William and the others reminded me on that glorious day that when the battered victims finally speak in their own name, they begin to heal the wrongs of all society by making justice an actual possibility. And such justice, and the equality it breeds, always precedes any possibility of the kind of mutual forgiveness that abolishes all distinctions of winners and losers.
Standing by our own painful truth is as necessary as standing by one another – and as dangerous to a society like ours which is based on domination and abuse. In times like these, just naming what we feel and know to be true is a subversive act, and will become more difficult to do in the face of ever-growing oppression by the few who rule by psychically dominating a crippled majority.
It is perhaps for this reason that, among establishment educators, counselors and “helping professionals” whose devotion to the political status quo is as solid as their own dogma, encouraging such inner freedom and the owning of one’s own truth among the abused and victimized is seen as rank heresy and, in the words of one psychologist, “can be dangerously provocative.”
So be it. Our aim, after all, is to turn the world upside down. For once we unite and confront those who are the cause of our torment, there begins to grow something even greater than healing, or forgiveness, and that is transformation, both of ourselves and a hierarchical and oppressive society that requires that we remain dissociated and brutalized people.
On one of the last times I ever saw William Combes, he handed me a scrap of paper with a brief poem that summed up his triumph. It read,
I looked for healing, but healing escaped me. I sought after God, I searched for love, but neither could I see. I found my own truth, and I discovered all three.
A Post-Script: On the Language and Understanding of Therapy
In the hierarchical, corporatized world of “the west”, a man or woman is not a free agent but rather a de facto object acted upon by a superior and wholly external force for either elevation, or diminishment – “good” or “evil”, God or the Devil. Thus is a “sick” person treated by another, more qualified specialist; therapy is “done to” and upon a helpless and dependent consumer of betterment.
To employ the word “therapy” to describe such a false and artificial method is to misconstrue the meaning of the word, and an original practice of healing as old as humanity.
The word comes from the Greek term “therapeia”, which in its root meaning describes “serving and rejuvenating another, as a servant adoringly pours himself out for another”.
This is the language and art of restoration, not “treatment”. To truly heal another is to give up something of one’s self: to pray with one’s own life blood.
Rather than a superior specialist condescending to “treat” a victim, as one power might negotiate and bargain over another, the “therapeist” unconditionally empties himself for one bereft of life. A sort of loving energy transfer is at work. One is reminded of Jesus’ elevation of the poorest, of declaring that the last are suddenly first, and the first last: a turning of the cosmic tables.
We shift to a scene as old as we are, and captured in a documentary film about the Kung San people in what foreign invaders call Namibia. An old woman lies dying by a camp fire, surrounded by a crowd of people: everyone in the community, in fact, from grandparents to toddlers. All of the people share the same torment and agony on their faces as they extend their hands to touch and caress the suffering woman, moaning and crying out in the shared pain. Their love, and their life, is literally pouring into her. Soon after, the woman who lay dying opens her eyes, and sits up, smiling. She is restored.
Such is Therapeia.
Only a remedy based on what is Natural Law can name and employ the pouring out of one life or many lives for another on the terms of the suffering one. There is no hierarchy in this ancient medicine, only the need to recover and restore life in its fullness to one cut off from the common body.
Thus, whenever Jesus spoke of healing and actually mended others, he always referred to something translated as “the kingdom of heaven”, which he said is within everyone, and was fully present in his acts of healing. He was helping to restore a natural, vital presence in those drained of it. This type of restoration did more than mend and save a single life; it knitted back together and made as one common body a torn social reality of highs and lows, of winners and losers, which is the real source of human sickness.
The term wasn’t, in fact, “kingdom of heaven”, basilea tou theou in Greek, but in Jesus’ own Aramaic, malkhuta dishmayya, meaning “realm of eternity”: a wholly present and indwelling oneness already manifested in the world, accessible by all since it emerges from within each one of us. That is in truth the source of genuine healing, Therapeia, for one cell cannot be healthy in isolation from the entire body.
William Combes went to a “therapist” for what some like to call counseling for over twenty years, but none of it ever helped him or stilled his addictions, according to William, because such “therapy” never touched on the devastation that had befallen him and his whole society. As he described,
“I saw my friends and family get wiped out, one by one. Our people are all still dying off. I got stretched on that rack by Brother Murphy and ass fucked every day but that wasn’t the worst part, it was seeing those little kids get killed and shoved in the ground in secret, like the way they’ve killed our language and secret ways. That’s why I can’t ever get better, not while those kids are still stuck in unmarked graves. But saying that at least makes me see what’s true and how I can’t ever forget those little kids. The day I told that priest he was doing genocide to us and he was full of shit, and we stopped their fucking church service, man, that felt better than all those years in counseling.”
Like Jesus, who refused to divorce one person’s betterment from the establishment of a mended social body, while William Combes breathed he stretched out his life like one of the Kung San and poured himself into the sickness that is our whole society. William’s therapeia was for everyone.
I’m reminded, by way of a startling contrast, of a recent travesty that displays the full gamut of self-destruction among those who abide by the sickness of the dominators.
It took place in an expensive hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, where the bishops and priests of the churches responsible for the death of William Combes and his people stood in front of their victims and ripped open their wounds with more lies: with claims that they were just trying to “do good” when they robbed children from their homes and killed off entire aboriginal nations.
Some of the Indians present, though old and infirm, stood up and began to call the churchmen liars and yelled,
“Tell the truth! Do the right thing!”
But their rising Therapeia was cut short and crushed by “one of their own”: a sanitized Indian politician named Murray Sinclair who was long ago crafted into a replica of his tormentors.
Murray stood up, alarmed, and yelled at his fellow survivors,
“Sit down and show them the proper respect!”
Slaves, after all, have no right to call Caesar a liar, or demand anything from him. For he alone knows what is best for them, and will decide what the dominated need for their own good.
When Murray Sinclair demanded such subordination to those who have killed and escaped justice, one of the oldest women who had called for the truth from the churchmen broke down and began sobbing uncontrollably.
Her eyes, said one observer, had the look of death.
…………………………..
Kevin D. Annett is a community theologian, counselor, and award-winning author and film maker who lives and lectures in many places, and organizes survivors of torture in many more. He is a recognized enemy of the state and religion.
His websites are www.hiddennolonger.com and www.itccs.org .His email ishiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com
Kevin Annett (right) and torture survivor Harry Wilson, Vancouver 1997
Departed friends, gone but always present - Victims of church-state violence: Bingo Dawson, Ricky Lavallee and William Combes
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we can not know it.
- Blaise Pascal
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
I wrote the following piece, The Forgiveness Fallacy, because my life has reached an impasse, and a crisis. Like the proverbial Job, no human answers have satisfied by grieving heart and soul - my simple “why?”
All of my advocacy, “care giving” and protests on behalf of victims of torture for decades has brought me to the stark but undeniable realization that the systematic destruction of children by institutions of church and state is not in practice considered a criminal offense, and worse, is treated with tolerant indifference by the citizenry.
I am searching for the reason why we stand by and watch our children get slaughtered, and so easily forgive their killers. This search is leading me into the deepest entrails of my own culture, its history, and its hidden-in-plain-sight “poisonous pedagogy”, to quote Alice Miller: a system that deliberately crushes human autonomy and joy at a tender age, and then acclimatizes us to our own violation as children, making us harsh reflections of what killed our innocence.
Welcome to my search. But a warning, from another bold explorer, Oscar Wilde: Those who look beneath the surface of things do so at their own risk.
- Kevin Daniel Annett, June 2012
The Forgiveness Fallacy: Standing by our Painful Truth
By Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.
Whenever my abusive boyfriend wanted to make up with me, he’d tell me he was sorry for beating me up, and naturally, I’d forgive him. That was just a green light for him to start beating me up all over again.
Carol M., Vancouver
By refusing to forgive, I give up my illusions.
Alice Miller, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence
Harry Wilson is still alive, somehow. He is homeless, starving, plagued by alcoholism and drug addiction, and regularly beaten and robbed on Vancouver’s meanest streets. Yet neither his present suffering, nor his childhood rape and torture by a United Church clergyman with an electric cattle prod, has caused him to collapse, as it has most of his fellow survivors from the death camps called Canadian Indian Residential Schools.
Very few of these others have ever found their voice, but Harry has: and when he speaks of his life, he always ends by saying the same thing:
“I’ll never forgive those bastards for what they did to me.”
Harry Wilson proves to me something I have observed over many years as a street counselor and practicing clergyman: that the people who endure torture with a semblance of self-respect are those who have never forgiven what was done to them, especially as a child.
I’ve recently begun to ask counselors and other “helping” professionals why they believe that a traumatized man or woman must forgive their abuser if they are to become well. I have yet to receive a clear or logical answer. Rather, it is simply a self-evident and unquestioned assumption of these “experts” that “forgiveness” is indispensable to recovery from any form of torture or abuse.
In reality, when we look beneath this surface conjecture, we find that the exact opposite is true: namely, that the most basic requirement of commencing recovery from any pain or trauma is to never surrender our capacity to remember and name the wrong and the wrongdoer, but rather to be able to freely speak about it and express our natural outrage at what has happened to us. And yet precisely such a surrender and self-silencing is required for us to undertake the gesture of “forgiving”, which in practice means to inwardly resign oneself to having been tortured at the hands of another who has invariably escaped justice or accountability for his wrong.
According to the dominant religious, medical and psychological paradigm in our culture, “forgiving” a tormenter is inexplicably framed as a unilateral, non-reciprocal act on the part of the victim that does not require the victimizer to change. “Forgiveness” is seen as a simple end in itself that will somehow magically bring about “healing”, rather than in reality being the start of a long, painful process of change that prevents the abuse from re-occurring.
The fact that, under this dominant model, the abuse can continue, and is actually encouraged to continue, doesn’t seem to count for as much as the need for supplication and self-abasement by the one who has been abused. In short, modern “therapists” seem intent on subjecting victims of trauma to precisely what is needed to sustain them in a state of unalleviated humiliation and non-recovery.
Anger and the refusal to “let go” of our violation is seen by such therapists as a hindrance to “moving on”, as if not accommodating to one’s wronged condition is the source of one’s problem. “Forgive and forget, and you will be better” is the unchallengeable secular creed of counseling psychology. The onus, in other words, is placed upon the victim, and not the victimizer, to change.
Why?
It is alarming to the extent that so-called “helping” professionals base their methods not upon provable truths but on this partisan siding with the abuser: a highly ideological position that flows from an unquestioned and unassailable Christian moralism - specifically, the underlying assumption that there is something wrong and unhealthy about challenging or confronting one’s abuse and abusers.
In this approach, there seems to be endless room for “reconciliation” and “forgiveness” by the victim, but just so much time and space allowed for the naming of the full and terrible truth: as if the sheep can only be “reconciled” with the wolf except by agreeing to be eaten over and over again.
More people than I care to remember have told me how their counselors have told them that healing is only possible by moving beyond their past, “having closure”, and learning to live with the injustices and betrayals done to them. Remarkably, a victim of violence is thereby being asked to repress the memory of the crime and disassociate their life from its consequences: precisely what one should not do if one is to come to grips with a traumatic experience, and not be complicit in aiding the concealment of a crime.
Torture and rape victims are told over and over by modern “therapy” that they are somehow damaging or belittling themselves by not forgiving and forgetting those who harmed them. And so “closure” means, in practice, closing off forever one’s memories, legitimate anger, and the capacity to secure justice and personal vindication.
It is pretty clear whose interests such a self-destructive approaches actually serves.
In the case of aboriginal survivors of Christian genocide, such a charade of “healing” is an obvious political maneuver by government and church-paid therapists to sideline and prevent lawsuits and even more hazardous responses of the survivors. But the argument is the same, whether for aboriginal or non-native refugees from childhood rape and torture: the abuser is not responsible for changing, and must ultimately be appeased and placated by being forgiven by his victims.
The fact that this attitude is so universal, and that the capacity to “forgive” their torturers is held up as some sort of qualifying morality test for victims, suggests that it arises from something very basic. I suggest that this something is the collective, fearful memory of parental retaliation: a fear that gives rise to our entire structure of personal and societal morality in European Christian culture which is based on a dominator, “winner and loser” model of social relationships.
In a nutshell, that religious-based morality states that goodness consists of respecting and obeying constituted authority and one’s elders. By definition, one cannot be wronged or abused by those in such authority because they are superior to us, and thus, are incapable of being in error in relation to us or guilty of a crime.
This explains, in part, why no prominent politician, church leader or other father-figure ever goes to jail or even be held accountable for the crimes and murders committed by their institution, when the law clearly requires them to be, since the terrorizing of the innocent by the mighty is in practice not only legitimate, but a functionally necessary part of any hierarchical social order.
The template of such elite-worshiping morality, of course, is the Biblical message that a “rebellious” humanity and all of creation is being punished by an all-wise father-figure “god” because his instructions were disobeyed by our ancestors. Yet the same punishing deity offers us a way back into his graces if we will return to our original unthinking state of obedience through our blind faith in his son Christ – and in those who claim to “represent” him. If we reject this one-time offer, however, we are damned for eternity as amoral and evil people.
In this Christian paradigm, we are all inherently lost and sick souls, but we can become “moral” and well again through obedience to those powerful and dominating figures who know better than we do, whether familial, religious or political leaders. In short, morality and well being means unflagging obedience and conformity to the very power that harms and endangers us.
To kiss the hand that strikes you makes no sense, at the best of times. But the absolute mandate to do precisely that pervades all of our thinking and social practice, however subtly it is disguised or elaborately it is rationalized. And so it is hardly surprising that the pressure to conform to the unchallengeable interests of authority figures conditions virtually every aspect of our lives, from religion to political activism to social and family relationships.
By this scheme, humanity is divided into the dominators and the subjugated. In our western religious-philosophical tradition, one cannot envision anything – and in fact, nothing is allowed to operate in any substantial way – outside the bipolar dynamic between the dominator (abuser-winner) and the accommodator (the abused-loser) personalities.
Even if we somehow disregard the fact that this is the prevailing paradigm of Euro-Christian culture, it remains a common and lingering belief that we must personally forgive a wrong done to us if we are to avoid a crippling resentment and thirst for revenge.
This attitude is especially prevalent in not only Christian circles but in allegedly “secular” treatment centers, where it’s routinely espoused that “I must forgive not for the sake of another, but for my own sake.” And after all, Jesus himself in various scriptures explicitly seems to condone an absolute forgiving of all those who harm us.
In reality, the word “forgiveness” in the New Testament, the Greek word aphiemi, is not an absolute moral term, but is akin to the Biblical Hebrew word for “repentance”, shub, which means to turn around and walk in a completely different direction. Jesus was saying, simply, to not be like the person who has harmed us, but rather, to be different. This is a radically dissimilar thing than saying, be reconciled with one who has harmed you. Indeed, it actually means the opposite: to leave and be separated from such a person.
Further, even on the level of the moralistic claim that forgiving those who trespass against us bestows a sort of psychic and personal cleansing, the empirical evidence does not bear this out.
To try to forgive one’s abuser is to deny our most basic common sense and our capacity to freely express our feelings and defend ourselves from further attacks. Unilateral “forgiveness” is not only unhealthy and suicidal, but fosters the illusion that a wrong is somehow wiped clean by killing in oneself the desire to protect our dignity and seek restitution for our pain.
On the contrary, it’s clear that when we forgive another person, we must not only repress our natural feelings but deny what we know is true for the sake of a supposed settlement with an abuser who usually shows little or no remorse for his action.
In practice, such a resolution is rarely achieved, and yet the desperate “forgiver” cannot recognize or acknowledge this simple fact, and is encouraged to blame himself for not finding a settlement with his adversary. As a result of such masochistic assumptions, the victim becomes entrenched in an even deeper denial about his own condition, like any battered child who keeps proclaiming, “I’ve told my abusive father I love him! Why does he keep beating me?”
In this manner, the cycle of abuse and torture continues.
To accept on blind faith the efficacy and “healing power” of unilateral forgiveness is merely another form of repression and denial of one’s actual condition. By repressing one’s own truth for the sake of a phony unanimity with an abuser, the abused person must immerse himself in a permanently dissociated mental state to convince himself that his act of “forgiveness” has both redeemed his abuse and reformed his abuser – neither of which is true.
For modern “therapists” to demand such a neurotic and fragmented psyche in those who have survived abuse and torture is not only sadistic, but merely continues that affliction under another name. And yet, aided and abetted by such a fraudulent model of “therapy”, this destructive pathology is imposed most strongly on those people who have suffered most severely, individually and collectively, at the hands of others.
I witnessed this last year, when a strange and sad gathering of aboriginal people assembled on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to unilaterally offer to the government of Canada a so-called “Forgiveness Charter” in the name, absurdly, of everyone who ever attended an Indian residential school, the dead as well as the living.
The event was sponsored, predictably, by the very churches that ran the death camps called “schools”, acting through various puppet aboriginal politicians and preachers. But the rally was filled with hundreds of everyday survivors of rape and torture in these institutions: people who sincerely believed that their unilateral “forgiving” of the government would make everything better.
The very fact that the “Charter” was addressed not to those who are actually responsible for the residential schools and their crimes – the Catholic and Protestant churches themselves – spoke volumes of the deceitful and obscuring purpose of the event. Nor did the enormous pretense and travesty of publicly absolving murderers for a crime on behalf of the silent and slaughtered victims who have no say in the matter seemed not to have occurred to anyone at the rally, or to the slavish national media that widely and uncritically reported the charade.
Nevertheless, what I described earlier as the innate dread of parental retaliation that so molds our society’s notion of well being and morality was rampantly present at the Forgiveness Charter Rally. Each aboriginal speaker implored his fellow survivors of Christian terror to believe that much harder in Christianity, to love those who had harmed them, and to completely absolve both church and state for all the wrongs they had committed against native people: even the massacre of children.
The fear in the speakers’ eyes and voices was palpable that day, as was their pitiful hope that their torturers would approve of their words, and stop their reign of terror against them. I have seen the same look in every battered woman who is convinced that just a bit more love from her will still the blows of her husband. The hopes of the eternal victim, robbed of their own voice and the capacity to confront and then depart from their abuser, are always the same – and are never realized.
An Alternative
What would a genuine recovery, geared to the needs of the victims themselves, look like? I have given such recovery the name “Aletheia Therapy”, from the Greek word for Truth.
Aletheia means that which is not concealed, but is seen and expressed as it really is. Such genuineness is at the core of all life and recovery, but is accessible only through complete self-honesty and remembrance in a climate free of intimidation and domination.
Rather than the Christian paradigm that sees humanity as inherently debased and flawed, and in need of continual correction by a wiser external authority, Aletheia Therapy arises from the Natural Law axiom that every man and woman is born as a complete and sufficient entity who holds within themselves the key to what is necessary for their own health and recovery. Since the truth is indeed within us, it is only by remembering who we are and what we have experienced in its totality that we can find ourselves and our wholeness again.
This approach is radically in line with the teachings of Jesus, and ironically, radically counter posed to the heritage of Christianity and western patriarchy, and its authoritarian insistence that we respect and reconcile with our abuser-dominator.
If we begin by rejecting such a moralistic view or “forgiveness imperative” in dealing with our own pain and trauma, and begin from the first and fundamental necessity of knowing our own truth by always retaining our capacity to speak freely for ourselves about who and what has caused our affliction, we can avoid the self-defeating pitfalls of silencing ourselves and burying our feelings for the sake of our abusers.
By not worrying about forgiveness, we free ourselves from any illusion about our actual condition, and we retain our capacity to speak freely about what we feel and know is true. What I have observed in trauma healing circles, time and again, is that only when victims have reached such a stage of inner freedom can genuine recovery from self-isolating destructiveness begin.
In the words of Alice Miller,
To live with one’s own truth is to be at home with oneself. That is the opposite of isolation.
My fondest and most inspiring memory of such actual recovery occurred not in a healing circle at all, but at a public protest inside the sanctuary of the Roman Catholic cathedral in downtown Vancouver just before Easter in 2007, when aboriginal survivors of torture in Catholic residential schools held aloft their banners and signs, and spoke to the congregation of the crimes committed against them by their church.
The same men and women who could not enter a catholic church or see a crucifix without becoming nauseous because of the awful memories of their torture as children strode bravely and calmly amidst the pews that day and handed leaflets to the dumbstruck crowd. Remarkably, these survivors faced down the threats of policemen and priests that day, and stated their case to them without a trace of fear; and then they peacefully left the building to the sound of their own drum beats, laughter, cheers and joyful triumph.
Outside, as we all hugged and congratulated one another, a permanent cloud of despair seemed to lift from the native men and women gathered there, and during the following week, several of them actually stopped drinking and doing drugs, for the first time in many years.
What had caused this incredible change that day was summed up by one of the victors, a native man named William Combes, when he said later on my radio program,
I thought I was going to crap out and let you all down, but then I saw you outside the church and it gave me the courage to walk up those steps with you. Then inside the church you all kept me safe. Just doing the right thing with everybody made me feel safe. Just speaking the truth to those bastards and facing down the priests, then I didn’t fear them. I didn’t give a shit anymore what they could do to me. I was angrier at what they’d done to all my little friends at residential school. I felt like a man for the first time ever, maybe.
William and the others reminded me on that glorious day that when the battered victims finally speak in their own name, they begin to heal the wrongs of all society by making justice an actual possibility. And such justice, and the equality it breeds, always precedes any possibility of the kind of mutual forgiveness that abolishes all distinctions of winners and losers.
Standing by our own painful truth is as necessary as standing by one another – and as dangerous to a society like ours which is based on domination and abuse. In times like these, just naming what we feel and know to be true is a subversive act, and will become more difficult to do in the face of ever-growing oppression by the few who rule by psychically dominating a crippled majority.
It is perhaps for this reason that, among establishment educators, counselors and “helping professionals” whose devotion to the political status quo is as solid as their own dogma, encouraging such inner freedom and the owning of one’s own truth among the abused and victimized is seen as rank heresy and, in the words of one psychologist, “can be dangerously provocative.”
So be it. Our aim, after all, is to turn the world upside down. For once we unite and confront those who are the cause of our torment, there begins to grow something even greater than healing, or forgiveness, and that is transformation, both of ourselves and a hierarchical and oppressive society that requires that we remain dissociated and brutalized people.
On one of the last times I ever saw William Combes, he handed me a scrap of paper with a brief poem that summed up his triumph. It read,
I looked for healing, but healing escaped me. I sought after God, I searched for love, but neither could I see. I found my own truth, and I discovered all three.
A Post-Script: On the Language and Understanding of Therapy
In the hierarchical, corporatized world of “the west”, a man or woman is not a free agent but rather a de facto object acted upon by a superior and wholly external force for either elevation, or diminishment – “good” or “evil”, God or the Devil. Thus is a “sick” person treated by another, more qualified specialist; therapy is “done to” and upon a helpless and dependent consumer of betterment.
To employ the word “therapy” to describe such a false and artificial method is to misconstrue the meaning of the word, and an original practice of healing as old as humanity.
The word comes from the Greek term “therapeia”, which in its root meaning describes “serving and rejuvenating another, as a servant adoringly pours himself out for another”.
This is the language and art of restoration, not “treatment”. To truly heal another is to give up something of one’s self: to pray with one’s own life blood.
Rather than a superior specialist condescending to “treat” a victim, as one power might negotiate and bargain over another, the “therapeist” unconditionally empties himself for one bereft of life. A sort of loving energy transfer is at work. One is reminded of Jesus’ elevation of the poorest, of declaring that the last are suddenly first, and the first last: a turning of the cosmic tables.
We shift to a scene as old as we are, and captured in a documentary film about the Kung San people in what foreign invaders call Namibia. An old woman lies dying by a camp fire, surrounded by a crowd of people: everyone in the community, in fact, from grandparents to toddlers. All of the people share the same torment and agony on their faces as they extend their hands to touch and caress the suffering woman, moaning and crying out in the shared pain. Their love, and their life, is literally pouring into her. Soon after, the woman who lay dying opens her eyes, and sits up, smiling. She is restored.
Such is Therapeia.
Only a remedy based on what is Natural Law can name and employ the pouring out of one life or many lives for another on the terms of the suffering one. There is no hierarchy in this ancient medicine, only the need to recover and restore life in its fullness to one cut off from the common body.
Thus, whenever Jesus spoke of healing and actually mended others, he always referred to something translated as “the kingdom of heaven”, which he said is within everyone, and was fully present in his acts of healing. He was helping to restore a natural, vital presence in those drained of it. This type of restoration did more than mend and save a single life; it knitted back together and made as one common body a torn social reality of highs and lows, of winners and losers, which is the real source of human sickness.
The term wasn’t, in fact, “kingdom of heaven”, basilea tou theou in Greek, but in Jesus’ own Aramaic, malkhuta dishmayya, meaning “realm of eternity”: a wholly present and indwelling oneness already manifested in the world, accessible by all since it emerges from within each one of us. That is in truth the source of genuine healing, Therapeia, for one cell cannot be healthy in isolation from the entire body.
William Combes went to a “therapist” for what some like to call counseling for over twenty years, but none of it ever helped him or stilled his addictions, according to William, because such “therapy” never touched on the devastation that had befallen him and his whole society. As he described,
“I saw my friends and family get wiped out, one by one. Our people are all still dying off. I got stretched on that rack by Brother Murphy and ass fucked every day but that wasn’t the worst part, it was seeing those little kids get killed and shoved in the ground in secret, like the way they’ve killed our language and secret ways. That’s why I can’t ever get better, not while those kids are still stuck in unmarked graves. But saying that at least makes me see what’s true and how I can’t ever forget those little kids. The day I told that priest he was doing genocide to us and he was full of shit, and we stopped their fucking church service, man, that felt better than all those years in counseling.”
Like Jesus, who refused to divorce one person’s betterment from the establishment of a mended social body, while William Combes breathed he stretched out his life like one of the Kung San and poured himself into the sickness that is our whole society. William’s therapeia was for everyone.
I’m reminded, by way of a startling contrast, of a recent travesty that displays the full gamut of self-destruction among those who abide by the sickness of the dominators.
It took place in an expensive hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, where the bishops and priests of the churches responsible for the death of William Combes and his people stood in front of their victims and ripped open their wounds with more lies: with claims that they were just trying to “do good” when they robbed children from their homes and killed off entire aboriginal nations.
Some of the Indians present, though old and infirm, stood up and began to call the churchmen liars and yelled,
“Tell the truth! Do the right thing!”
But their rising Therapeia was cut short and crushed by “one of their own”: a sanitized Indian politician named Murray Sinclair who was long ago crafted into a replica of his tormentors.
Murray stood up, alarmed, and yelled at his fellow survivors,
“Sit down and show them the proper respect!”
Slaves, after all, have no right to call Caesar a liar, or demand anything from him. For he alone knows what is best for them, and will decide what the dominated need for their own good.
When Murray Sinclair demanded such subordination to those who have killed and escaped justice, one of the oldest women who had called for the truth from the churchmen broke down and began sobbing uncontrollably.
Her eyes, said one observer, had the look of death.
…………………………..
Kevin D. Annett is a community theologian, counselor, and award-winning author and film maker who lives and lectures in many places, and organizes survivors of torture in many more. He is a recognized enemy of the state and religion.
His websites are www.hiddennolonger.com and www.itccs.org .His email ishiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com
Kevin Annett (right) and torture survivor Harry Wilson, Vancouver 1997
Departed friends, gone but always present - Victims of church-state violence: Bingo Dawson, Ricky Lavallee and William Combes
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we can not know it.
- Blaise Pascal
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
Please donate to the work of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State. Your donati
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From the Eagle Watch #226
June 8, 2012
FYI - Very Important News!!!
This message came from Gordon Edwards with over 1MB of attachments. If you would like to read the Mistissini press releaases,
write to eric at cardinal communications.
SOURCE : Eric Cardinal
Communication Advisor
514-868-0172
Cell. : 514-258-2315
eric@cardinalcommunication.com
Subject: URANIUM -- Mistissini says “NO” and asks for a Moratorium / Mistissini dit «NON» et demande un moratoire
From: "Gordon Edwards" <ccnr@web.ca>
Date: Thu, June 7, 2012 10:42 am
To: "Gordon Edwards" <ccnr@web.ca>
Background:
Across Quebec, countless groups have been organizing for the last few
years to bring about a moratorium on uranium exploration and uranium mining
in the province -- to match the 1978 government moratorium on new nuclear
reactors that has been upheld by all successive governments including the
present one.
Uranium exploration activities have been going on all over this mineral-rich
province, particularly in the Hautes Laurentides (High Laurentians), the Cote
Nord (the North Shore, with activity centred at Sept-Isles) and the Gatineau area
(Ottawa River Valley).
But by far the most advanced project is located in Eeyou-Istchee, the
territory of the Cree Nation of Quebec, in the sacred Otish mountains -- the
geographic and hydrologic centre of Quebec, where waters flow south to Lake
Mistassini, the largest freshwater lake in the province, then south to the Saint
Lawrence River or west to James Bay where several coastal Cree communtiies are
located.
Strateco Corp. has spent six years preparing to open up one ore body
in the Otish Mountains through an "advanced exploration project" called the
Matoush Project. Over the last three years two environmental assessment
bodies (with Cree representation on both panels) have given a cautious green light
to the project, and now it is at the licensing stage. The Canadian Nuclear
Safety Commission is holding public hearings into the licensing of the Matoush
Project in two communities, Mistissini (June 5 and 6) and Chibougamau
(June 6).
On the first day of the licensing hearings, the Chief of the Cree
Nation of Mistissini -- with the full backing of the Grand Council of the Crees
-- declared in eloquent and resolute language that the Cree Nation will not allow
further uranium exploration or mining in Eeeyou-Istchee and will do whatever
is needed to bring about a moratorium on such activities throughout Quebec.
This is an historic event, considering that Canada -- historically
the largest producer and exporter of uranium in the world -- now has two
provinces that have banned uranium exploration and mining (British Columbia and Nova
Scotia) and a third province (Quebec) where the very first uranium
mining project on the drawing boards may be stopped dead in its tracks. For
even if a licence is granted to the Matoush project, it is now highly
doubtful that it will be allowed to proceed by provincial authorities.
Stay tuned.
Gordon Edwards
======================================================
Uranium Exploration:
Mistissini says “NO” and asks for a Moratorium
Mistissini, Eeyou Istchee, June 5, 2012 – The Chief of Cree Nation
of Mistissini, Richard Shecapio, made it clear at the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission’s (CNSC) public hearing, held today (June 5) in Mistissini, that it’s
community is firmly against uranium development on Eeyou Istchee. « We want to put an end to the
question of uranium development once and for all, right now. We know where this is going and we don’t want any uranium mining at all », said Chief Shecapio.
This hearing concerns the Strateco Resources Inc.’s (Strateco) application for a licence
to prepare site and construct for an underground exploration program at the Matoush
Project, located approximately 260 kilometres north of Chibougamau, Québec. In
November 2010, the Cree Nation of Mistissini has expressed that this project did not
have the support of the community. This position has been reasserted again in 2011.
Today, the Chief confirmed that nothing has changed and that the position remains unchanged.
A moratorium
Chief Shecapio explained that his Council intends to do « whatever it
takes » to implement a moratorium on uranium development. “In light of the lack
of social acceptability, cultural incompatibility and the lack of a clear
understanding of the health and environmental impacts of uranium mining, it would be
reckless for us as a people to move forward and allow the licensing of Strateco’s
advanced exploration project. We are seeking a moratorium on uranium mining and
exploration on our traditional lands as well as in the province of Quebec », said Chief
Shecapio.
In his intervention to the hearings, Chief Shecapio explained that the Crees have
always been the guardians and protectors of the land and will continue to be. For
the Crees of Mistissini, the land is a school of its own and the resources of the land
are the material and supplies they need. Cree traplines are the classrooms. What is
taught on these traplines to the youth is the Cree way of life which means living in
harmony with nature. This form of education ensures their survival as a people. Any
form of education that leads to survival is a high standard of education. Cree form of
education teaches to be humble, respectful, responsible, disciplined, independent,
sharing and compassionate.
« Because our people are still active on the land, hunting, trapping and consuming
the animals, we are concerned that traditional foods may become contaminated with
radionuclides, posing a threat to those who eat them. High levels of radionuclides in
moose and caribou tissues have been reported in animals near uranium mines. This
indirect exposure can lead to serious health issues for the people who eat contaminated animals”, expressed Chief Shecapio.
The CNSC, along with Canadian environmental agencies have concluded that this project presents low risk to the environmental and human health. This, however, has not been effectively demonstrated to the people of the Cree nation of Mistissini. As a result, if this project is permitted, the perception of the contamination this project will cause will permanently transform the relationship with the land and restrict the use of this land by the Cree for hunting, fishing and trapping pursuits for generations.
No nuclear development
Another point Mistissini opposes is Quebec’s investment in the future of nuclear energy.
« We do not believe that nuclear energy, which is the primary use for
uranium in Canada, is a sustainable form of energy. We do not want to see a
resource extracted from our land which is responsible for causing pollution and waste.
We do not want this to be our impact on the world. The Crees have already sacrificed a
great deal, including their rights and their land, for one source of clean and abundant
renewable energy: hydroelectricity », added Richard Shecapio.
Lack of communication
Although still in the early phases of its implementation, Strateco’s
efforts to engage the community since the signing of the CIA have not been, and remain out
of synch with the community’s expectations. “We signed a Communication and
Information Agreement with Strateco in December in good faith, in order to give
them the opportunity to do what they should have been doing since 2006 : to
address my people’s concerns with this project. Nothing, however has changed
since the signing of the agreement. Strateco does not have and has never had our
support for the Matoush project despite what they may have announced to their
investors », said Chief Shecapio.
Uranium mining is not locally accepted in Eeyou Istchee. Additionally, 85% of members
of the Association des employees du nord du Quebec(AENQ), which has
more than 1500 members, voted against uranium development in Eeyou Istchee and
Nunavik in October 2010.
« Strateco Resources is far from having the Cree Nation of Mistissini’s consent to
proceed with this project. We hope for the recognition and respect of our community’s concerns
and position by the Commission Tribunal in taking its final decision on the issuance of a license to Strateco Resources », concluded Richard Shecapio.
About the Cree Nation of Mistissini
The Cree Nation of Mistissini is one of the largest Cree communities
of the James Bay Crees of Quebec, Canada, and is situated at the southeast end
of Mistassini Lake. The Council of Mistissini consists of a Chief, a Deputy
Chief and seven elected Councillors.
- 30 -
SOURCE : Eric Cardinal
Communication Advisor
514-868-0172
Cell. : 514-258-2315
eric@cardinalcommunication.com
i got this from their (yawn) web site and don't get the connection to mistissini...
CARDINAL COMMUNICATIONS
4340 REDWOOD HIGHWAY, STE D307 - SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903 415.479.0999
====================
Exploration d'uranium:
Mistissini dit «NON» et demande un moratoire
Mistissini, Eeyou Istchee, 5 juin 2012 – Le Chef du Conseil de la
Nation Cri
de Mistissini, Richard Shecapio, a clairement exprimé sa position aux
audiences
publiques de la Commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire (CCSN)
qui se tiennent
aujourd'hui (5 juin) à Mistissini, en mentionnant que sa communauté
est fortement
opposée au développement uranifère en Eeyou Istchee. «On veut dès
maintenant
mettre un point final à la question du développement uranifère, et
ce, une fois pour
toutes. Nous voyons bien la direction prise par ce projet
d'exploration d'uranium, et
nous ne voulons aucun projet de mine d'uranium», a dit le Chef
Shecapio.
Cette audience publique porte sur la demande de permis de Ressources
Strateco
inc. (Strateco) pour la préparation de l’emplacement et la
construction en lien avec
un programme de prospection souterraine sur le site du projet
Matoush, situé à
environ 260 kilomètres au nord de Chibougamau au Québec. En novembre
2010,
la Nation Cri de Mistissini s'était exprimée quant à ce projet qui
ne recevait pas
l'appui de la communauté. Cette même position s'est reconfirmée en
2011.
Aujourd'hui, le Chef réitère que rien n'a changé à cet effet de la
part de sa
communauté, et que la position demeure la même.
Un moratoire
Le Chef Shecapio a abordé ce que le Conseil envisage, «peu importe
ce qu'il faudra
faire» pour qu'il y ait un moratoire sur le développement
uranifère. «À la lumière des
lacunes constatées en matière d'acceptabilité sociale, de
l'incompatibilité à l'égard de
notre culture et du manque de compréhension claire quant aux impacts
du projet de
mine d'uranium sur la santé et l'environnement, ce serait téméraire
de la part de
notre peuple d'aller de l'avant et d'accorder une licence pour
l'avancée du projet
d'exploration de Strateco. Nous demandons un moratoire sur
l'exploration uranifère
et les mines d'uranium sur nos terres ancestrales aussi bien que sur
les terres du
Québec», a dit le Chef Shecapio.
Lors de son intervention aux audiences publiques, Richard Shecapio a
expliqué que
les Cris ont toujours été les gardiens et les protecteurs du
territoire et qu'ils vont
continuer à l'être. Pour les Cris de Mistissini, le territoire est
en soi un milieu
d'apprentissage et fournit déjà ce dont ils ont besoin. Les
territoires de trappe
constituent des classes d'apprentissage cri. Ce qui y est enseigné
aux jeunes,
c'est le mode de vie cri, un mode de vie en harmonie avec la nature.
Cette forme
d'enseignement sur le terrain assure leur survie au sein de leur
peuple. Toute forme
d'enseignement visant la survivance constitue un enseignement de haut
niveau.
Cette façon d'enseigner à la manière crie vise à apprendre
l'humilité, le respect, la
responsabilité, la discipline, l'indépendance, le partage et la
compassion.
«Étant donnée la présence active de notre population sur le
territoire, qui chasse,
trappe et consomme la viande animale, nous sommes concernés par le
fait que la
nourriture traditionnelle pourrait devenir contaminée par des
radionucléides, qui
constituent une menace pour la consommation humaine. De hauts taux de
radionucléides ont été rapportés dans des orignaux et des
caribous à proximité
de mines d'uranium. Cette exposition indirecte peut conduire à de
graves problèmes
de santé pour les personnes qui consomment de la viande
contaminée», a mentionné
le Chef Shecapio.
La CCSN, ainsi que les agences environnementales canadiennes ont
conclu que ce
projet présente peu de risques pour l'environnement et la santé
humaine. Mais ceci
n'a pas été clairement démontré à la population de la Nation Cri
de Mistissini. En
conséquence, si ce projet est permis, la perception de la population
à l'égard de la
contamination provoquée par ce projet transformera de manière
permanente sa
relation avec le territoire, tout en limitant l'usage de ce
territoire par les Cris pour
leurs activités de chasse, de pêche et de piégeage pour des
générations à venir.
Aucun développement nucléaire
Mistissini dénonce aussi l'investissement fait par Québec pour
l'avenir de l'énergie
nucléaire. «Nous ne croyons pas que l'énergie nucléaire, qui est
l'utilisation première
pour l'uranium au Canada, soit une forme d'énergie durable. Nous ne
voulons pas
qu'une ressource extraite de notre territoire soit responsable de
causer de la pollution
et des déchets. Nous ne voulons pas être associés à ce type
d'impact dans le monde.
Les Cris ont déjà fait de grands sacrifices concernant leurs droits
et leur territoire pour
une source d'énergie propre et abondamment renouvelable :
l'hydroélectricité», a
ajouté Richard Shecapio.
Un manque de communication
Bien qu'elle en soit encore aux premières phases de la mise en oeuvre
de son projet,
Strateco n'a pas fait tous les efforts attendus et toujours espérés
par la communauté
depuis la signature de la CIA. «En décembre, nous avons signé, de
bonne foi, une
Entente de communication et d'information avec Strateco afin de leur
donner la
possibilité de faire ce qu'ils auraient dû faire depuis 2006: pour
répondre aux
préoccupations de mon peuple avec ce projet. Rien n’a changé
depuis la signature
de l’Entente. Strateco n'a pas et n'a jamais eu notre soutien pour
le projet Matoush,
malgré ce qu'ils ont annoncé à leurs investisseurs », a affirmé
le Chef Shecapio.
Les mines d'uranium ne sont pas acceptables en Eeyou Istchee. Deux
cents signatures
émanant de la communauté de Mistissini et provenant d'autres
communautés Cri
demandent un moratoire sur l'exploration et l'exploitation d'uranium
en territoire cri.
De plus, 85% des membres de l'Association des employés du Nord-du-
Québec (AENQ),
qui regroupe plus de 1500 membres, ont voté contre le projet de
développement
d'uranium en Eeyou Istchee et au Nunavik en octobre 2010.
«Ressources Strateco est loin d'avoir le consentement de la Nation
Cri de Mistissini
pour aller de l'avant avec ce projet. Nous souhaitons que les
préoccupations de notre
communauté soient reconnues et respectées, et être écoutés par le
Tribunal de la
Commission dans le cadre de la décision finale qu'elle prendra quant
à la délivrance
d'un permis à Strateco», a conclu Richard Shecapio.
Au sujet de la Nation Cri de Mistissini
La Nation Cri de Mistissini est l'une des plus populeuses parmi les
communautés Cri de la Baie James au Québec (Canada), et elle est
située au sud-est du Lac Mistassini. Le Conseil de Mistissini est
composé d'un Chef, d'un Vice-chef et de sept conseillers élus.
- 30 -
SOURCE : Éric Cardinal
Conseiller en communications
514-868-0172
Cell. : 514-258-2315
eric@cardinalcommunication.com
Attachments:
untitled-[2.1] 54 k [ text/html ] Download | View
120605_MistissiniPR_No Uranium.pdf 711 k [ application/pdf ] Download
URANIUM EXPLORATION:
MISTISSI SAYS “NO” AND ASKS FOR A MORATORIUM
untitled-[2.3] 33 k [ text/html ] Download | View
120605_MistissiniRP_Non Uranium.pdf 482 k [ application/pdf ] Download
EXPLORATION D'URANIUM:
MISTISSI DIT «NON» ET DEMANDE UN MORATOIRE
untitled-[2.5] 0.2 k [ text/html ] Download | View
June 8, 2012
FYI - Very Important News!!!
This message came from Gordon Edwards with over 1MB of attachments. If you would like to read the Mistissini press releaases,
write to eric at cardinal communications.
SOURCE : Eric Cardinal
Communication Advisor
514-868-0172
Cell. : 514-258-2315
eric@cardinalcommunication.com
Subject: URANIUM -- Mistissini says “NO” and asks for a Moratorium / Mistissini dit «NON» et demande un moratoire
From: "Gordon Edwards" <ccnr@web.ca>
Date: Thu, June 7, 2012 10:42 am
To: "Gordon Edwards" <ccnr@web.ca>
Background:
Across Quebec, countless groups have been organizing for the last few
years to bring about a moratorium on uranium exploration and uranium mining
in the province -- to match the 1978 government moratorium on new nuclear
reactors that has been upheld by all successive governments including the
present one.
Uranium exploration activities have been going on all over this mineral-rich
province, particularly in the Hautes Laurentides (High Laurentians), the Cote
Nord (the North Shore, with activity centred at Sept-Isles) and the Gatineau area
(Ottawa River Valley).
But by far the most advanced project is located in Eeyou-Istchee, the
territory of the Cree Nation of Quebec, in the sacred Otish mountains -- the
geographic and hydrologic centre of Quebec, where waters flow south to Lake
Mistassini, the largest freshwater lake in the province, then south to the Saint
Lawrence River or west to James Bay where several coastal Cree communtiies are
located.
Strateco Corp. has spent six years preparing to open up one ore body
in the Otish Mountains through an "advanced exploration project" called the
Matoush Project. Over the last three years two environmental assessment
bodies (with Cree representation on both panels) have given a cautious green light
to the project, and now it is at the licensing stage. The Canadian Nuclear
Safety Commission is holding public hearings into the licensing of the Matoush
Project in two communities, Mistissini (June 5 and 6) and Chibougamau
(June 6).
On the first day of the licensing hearings, the Chief of the Cree
Nation of Mistissini -- with the full backing of the Grand Council of the Crees
-- declared in eloquent and resolute language that the Cree Nation will not allow
further uranium exploration or mining in Eeeyou-Istchee and will do whatever
is needed to bring about a moratorium on such activities throughout Quebec.
This is an historic event, considering that Canada -- historically
the largest producer and exporter of uranium in the world -- now has two
provinces that have banned uranium exploration and mining (British Columbia and Nova
Scotia) and a third province (Quebec) where the very first uranium
mining project on the drawing boards may be stopped dead in its tracks. For
even if a licence is granted to the Matoush project, it is now highly
doubtful that it will be allowed to proceed by provincial authorities.
Stay tuned.
Gordon Edwards
==============================
Uranium Exploration:
Mistissini says “NO” and asks for a Moratorium
Mistissini, Eeyou Istchee, June 5, 2012 – The Chief of Cree Nation
of Mistissini, Richard Shecapio, made it clear at the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission’s (CNSC) public hearing, held today (June 5) in Mistissini, that it’s
community is firmly against uranium development on Eeyou Istchee. « We want to put an end to the
question of uranium development once and for all, right now. We know where this is going and we don’t want any uranium mining at all », said Chief Shecapio.
This hearing concerns the Strateco Resources Inc.’s (Strateco) application for a licence
to prepare site and construct for an underground exploration program at the Matoush
Project, located approximately 260 kilometres north of Chibougamau, Québec. In
November 2010, the Cree Nation of Mistissini has expressed that this project did not
have the support of the community. This position has been reasserted again in 2011.
Today, the Chief confirmed that nothing has changed and that the position remains unchanged.
A moratorium
Chief Shecapio explained that his Council intends to do « whatever it
takes » to implement a moratorium on uranium development. “In light of the lack
of social acceptability, cultural incompatibility and the lack of a clear
understanding of the health and environmental impacts of uranium mining, it would be
reckless for us as a people to move forward and allow the licensing of Strateco’s
advanced exploration project. We are seeking a moratorium on uranium mining and
exploration on our traditional lands as well as in the province of Quebec », said Chief
Shecapio.
In his intervention to the hearings, Chief Shecapio explained that the Crees have
always been the guardians and protectors of the land and will continue to be. For
the Crees of Mistissini, the land is a school of its own and the resources of the land
are the material and supplies they need. Cree traplines are the classrooms. What is
taught on these traplines to the youth is the Cree way of life which means living in
harmony with nature. This form of education ensures their survival as a people. Any
form of education that leads to survival is a high standard of education. Cree form of
education teaches to be humble, respectful, responsible, disciplined, independent,
sharing and compassionate.
« Because our people are still active on the land, hunting, trapping and consuming
the animals, we are concerned that traditional foods may become contaminated with
radionuclides, posing a threat to those who eat them. High levels of radionuclides in
moose and caribou tissues have been reported in animals near uranium mines. This
indirect exposure can lead to serious health issues for the people who eat contaminated animals”, expressed Chief Shecapio.
The CNSC, along with Canadian environmental agencies have concluded that this project presents low risk to the environmental and human health. This, however, has not been effectively demonstrated to the people of the Cree nation of Mistissini. As a result, if this project is permitted, the perception of the contamination this project will cause will permanently transform the relationship with the land and restrict the use of this land by the Cree for hunting, fishing and trapping pursuits for generations.
No nuclear development
Another point Mistissini opposes is Quebec’s investment in the future of nuclear energy.
« We do not believe that nuclear energy, which is the primary use for
uranium in Canada, is a sustainable form of energy. We do not want to see a
resource extracted from our land which is responsible for causing pollution and waste.
We do not want this to be our impact on the world. The Crees have already sacrificed a
great deal, including their rights and their land, for one source of clean and abundant
renewable energy: hydroelectricity », added Richard Shecapio.
Lack of communication
Although still in the early phases of its implementation, Strateco’s
efforts to engage the community since the signing of the CIA have not been, and remain out
of synch with the community’s expectations. “We signed a Communication and
Information Agreement with Strateco in December in good faith, in order to give
them the opportunity to do what they should have been doing since 2006 : to
address my people’s concerns with this project. Nothing, however has changed
since the signing of the agreement. Strateco does not have and has never had our
support for the Matoush project despite what they may have announced to their
investors », said Chief Shecapio.
Uranium mining is not locally accepted in Eeyou Istchee. Additionally, 85% of members
of the Association des employees du nord du Quebec(AENQ), which has
more than 1500 members, voted against uranium development in Eeyou Istchee and
Nunavik in October 2010.
« Strateco Resources is far from having the Cree Nation of Mistissini’s consent to
proceed with this project. We hope for the recognition and respect of our community’s concerns
and position by the Commission Tribunal in taking its final decision on the issuance of a license to Strateco Resources », concluded Richard Shecapio.
About the Cree Nation of Mistissini
The Cree Nation of Mistissini is one of the largest Cree communities
of the James Bay Crees of Quebec, Canada, and is situated at the southeast end
of Mistassini Lake. The Council of Mistissini consists of a Chief, a Deputy
Chief and seven elected Councillors.
- 30 -
SOURCE : Eric Cardinal
Communication Advisor
514-868-0172
Cell. : 514-258-2315
eric@cardinalcommunication.com
i got this from their (yawn) web site and don't get the connection to mistissini...
CARDINAL COMMUNICATIONS
4340 REDWOOD HIGHWAY, STE D307 - SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903
====================
Exploration d'uranium:
Mistissini dit «NON» et demande un moratoire
Mistissini, Eeyou Istchee, 5 juin 2012 – Le Chef du Conseil de la
Nation Cri
de Mistissini, Richard Shecapio, a clairement exprimé sa position aux
audiences
publiques de la Commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire (CCSN)
qui se tiennent
aujourd'hui (5 juin) à Mistissini, en mentionnant que sa communauté
est fortement
opposée au développement uranifère en Eeyou Istchee. «On veut dès
maintenant
mettre un point final à la question du développement uranifère, et
ce, une fois pour
toutes. Nous voyons bien la direction prise par ce projet
d'exploration d'uranium, et
nous ne voulons aucun projet de mine d'uranium», a dit le Chef
Shecapio.
Cette audience publique porte sur la demande de permis de Ressources
Strateco
inc. (Strateco) pour la préparation de l’emplacement et la
construction en lien avec
un programme de prospection souterraine sur le site du projet
Matoush, situé à
environ 260 kilomètres au nord de Chibougamau au Québec. En novembre
2010,
la Nation Cri de Mistissini s'était exprimée quant à ce projet qui
ne recevait pas
l'appui de la communauté. Cette même position s'est reconfirmée en
2011.
Aujourd'hui, le Chef réitère que rien n'a changé à cet effet de la
part de sa
communauté, et que la position demeure la même.
Un moratoire
Le Chef Shecapio a abordé ce que le Conseil envisage, «peu importe
ce qu'il faudra
faire» pour qu'il y ait un moratoire sur le développement
uranifère. «À la lumière des
lacunes constatées en matière d'acceptabilité sociale, de
l'incompatibilité à l'égard de
notre culture et du manque de compréhension claire quant aux impacts
du projet de
mine d'uranium sur la santé et l'environnement, ce serait téméraire
de la part de
notre peuple d'aller de l'avant et d'accorder une licence pour
l'avancée du projet
d'exploration de Strateco. Nous demandons un moratoire sur
l'exploration uranifère
et les mines d'uranium sur nos terres ancestrales aussi bien que sur
les terres du
Québec», a dit le Chef Shecapio.
Lors de son intervention aux audiences publiques, Richard Shecapio a
expliqué que
les Cris ont toujours été les gardiens et les protecteurs du
territoire et qu'ils vont
continuer à l'être. Pour les Cris de Mistissini, le territoire est
en soi un milieu
d'apprentissage et fournit déjà ce dont ils ont besoin. Les
territoires de trappe
constituent des classes d'apprentissage cri. Ce qui y est enseigné
aux jeunes,
c'est le mode de vie cri, un mode de vie en harmonie avec la nature.
Cette forme
d'enseignement sur le terrain assure leur survie au sein de leur
peuple. Toute forme
d'enseignement visant la survivance constitue un enseignement de haut
niveau.
Cette façon d'enseigner à la manière crie vise à apprendre
l'humilité, le respect, la
responsabilité, la discipline, l'indépendance, le partage et la
compassion.
«Étant donnée la présence active de notre population sur le
territoire, qui chasse,
trappe et consomme la viande animale, nous sommes concernés par le
fait que la
nourriture traditionnelle pourrait devenir contaminée par des
radionucléides, qui
constituent une menace pour la consommation humaine. De hauts taux de
radionucléides ont été rapportés dans des orignaux et des
caribous à proximité
de mines d'uranium. Cette exposition indirecte peut conduire à de
graves problèmes
de santé pour les personnes qui consomment de la viande
contaminée», a mentionné
le Chef Shecapio.
La CCSN, ainsi que les agences environnementales canadiennes ont
conclu que ce
projet présente peu de risques pour l'environnement et la santé
humaine. Mais ceci
n'a pas été clairement démontré à la population de la Nation Cri
de Mistissini. En
conséquence, si ce projet est permis, la perception de la population
à l'égard de la
contamination provoquée par ce projet transformera de manière
permanente sa
relation avec le territoire, tout en limitant l'usage de ce
territoire par les Cris pour
leurs activités de chasse, de pêche et de piégeage pour des
générations à venir.
Aucun développement nucléaire
Mistissini dénonce aussi l'investissement fait par Québec pour
l'avenir de l'énergie
nucléaire. «Nous ne croyons pas que l'énergie nucléaire, qui est
l'utilisation première
pour l'uranium au Canada, soit une forme d'énergie durable. Nous ne
voulons pas
qu'une ressource extraite de notre territoire soit responsable de
causer de la pollution
et des déchets. Nous ne voulons pas être associés à ce type
d'impact dans le monde.
Les Cris ont déjà fait de grands sacrifices concernant leurs droits
et leur territoire pour
une source d'énergie propre et abondamment renouvelable :
l'hydroélectricité», a
ajouté Richard Shecapio.
Un manque de communication
Bien qu'elle en soit encore aux premières phases de la mise en oeuvre
de son projet,
Strateco n'a pas fait tous les efforts attendus et toujours espérés
par la communauté
depuis la signature de la CIA. «En décembre, nous avons signé, de
bonne foi, une
Entente de communication et d'information avec Strateco afin de leur
donner la
possibilité de faire ce qu'ils auraient dû faire depuis 2006: pour
répondre aux
préoccupations de mon peuple avec ce projet. Rien n’a changé
depuis la signature
de l’Entente. Strateco n'a pas et n'a jamais eu notre soutien pour
le projet Matoush,
malgré ce qu'ils ont annoncé à leurs investisseurs », a affirmé
le Chef Shecapio.
Les mines d'uranium ne sont pas acceptables en Eeyou Istchee. Deux
cents signatures
émanant de la communauté de Mistissini et provenant d'autres
communautés Cri
demandent un moratoire sur l'exploration et l'exploitation d'uranium
en territoire cri.
De plus, 85% des membres de l'Association des employés du Nord-du-
Québec (AENQ),
qui regroupe plus de 1500 membres, ont voté contre le projet de
développement
d'uranium en Eeyou Istchee et au Nunavik en octobre 2010.
«Ressources Strateco est loin d'avoir le consentement de la Nation
Cri de Mistissini
pour aller de l'avant avec ce projet. Nous souhaitons que les
préoccupations de notre
communauté soient reconnues et respectées, et être écoutés par le
Tribunal de la
Commission dans le cadre de la décision finale qu'elle prendra quant
à la délivrance
d'un permis à Strateco», a conclu Richard Shecapio.
Au sujet de la Nation Cri de Mistissini
La Nation Cri de Mistissini est l'une des plus populeuses parmi les
communautés Cri de la Baie James au Québec (Canada), et elle est
située au sud-est du Lac Mistassini. Le Conseil de Mistissini est
composé d'un Chef, d'un Vice-chef et de sept conseillers élus.
- 30 -
SOURCE : Éric Cardinal
Conseiller en communications
514-868-0172
Cell. : 514-258-2315
eric@cardinalcommunication.com
Attachments:
untitled-[2.1] 54 k [ text/html ] Download | View
120605_MistissiniPR_No Uranium.pdf 711 k [ application/pdf ] Download
URANIUM EXPLORATION:
MISTISSI SAYS “NO” AND ASKS FOR A MORATORIUM
untitled-[2.3] 33 k [ text/html ] Download | View
120605_MistissiniRP_Non Uranium.pdf 482 k [ application/pdf ] Download
EXPLORATION D'URANIUM:
MISTISSI DIT «NON» ET DEMANDE UN MORATOIRE
untitled-[2.5] 0.2 k [ text/html ] Download | View
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| Marcia Lane | 12:34am Jun 11 |
An Update from The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State - Brussels
June 10, 2012
To all affiliates and supporters,
Recently, we notified you and the world of our new campaign to take direct action to publicize and arrest known child rapists among clergy. Since then, dozens of enthusiastic volunteers have contacted us from thirteen cities in North America, Australia and Europe, wanting to form local Child Protection Action Groups to help "name and detain" child rapists in the churches.
Towards this end, we have issued the attached leaflet for you to distribute at both Catholic and Protestant churches in your community. Please have it translated if needed, and list a local contact email or phone number on the bottom of this leaflet to encourage participation from concerned citizens.
The ITCCS will be issuing an organizing manual for CPAG organizers soon. We will also be posting an online archive at www.itccs.org containing the identity and location of known sex offenders among clergy and other church staff. Please contribute to this archive with your own information about child predators in your community.
Stay tuned for more updates about our wider campaign to disestablish the churches responsible for centuries of crimes against the innocent.
The CPAG leaflet is attached and is also reproduced below.
Much love, strength and courage to all of you, and keep us informed of your actions!
The Executive Council,
ITCCS International, Brussels, 10 June 2012
........
Ending the Reign of Terror against Children:
We Will Name and Detain the Guilty
A Public Statement from the Children Protection Action Group*
This church is harboring known child rapists among its staff or clergy who are a constant danger to the children of our community. Because the church is allowed to hide its crimes and protect its rapists, and the police and courts refuse to intervene, we community members must act to defend our children.
We have done so by banding together into local Child Protection Action Groups (CPAG). Our CPAG will publish the names and pictures of child rapists within churches, and we will conduct citizens’ arrests to detain these criminals and deprive them of their office so they can no longer harm our children.
Join us today. The lives of our children and our future as a community are at stake. Child rape in the church is rampant and is escalating, and can only be stopped by an informed and active citizenry.
To provide information on child rapists to our CPAG or to join its actions, contact any of the numbers listed below. And consult our website at www.itccs.org for updates and to access our archive of church child offenders.
*CPAG is a network of community groups in five countries and is affiliated with The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (itccs.org)
Local CPAG Contact Information:
..............................................................................
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we can not know it.
- Blaise Pascal
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
June 10, 2012
To all affiliates and supporters,
Recently, we notified you and the world of our new campaign to take direct action to publicize and arrest known child rapists among clergy. Since then, dozens of enthusiastic volunteers have contacted us from thirteen cities in North America, Australia and Europe, wanting to form local Child Protection Action Groups to help "name and detain" child rapists in the churches.
Towards this end, we have issued the attached leaflet for you to distribute at both Catholic and Protestant churches in your community. Please have it translated if needed, and list a local contact email or phone number on the bottom of this leaflet to encourage participation from concerned citizens.
The ITCCS will be issuing an organizing manual for CPAG organizers soon. We will also be posting an online archive at www.itccs.org containing the identity and location of known sex offenders among clergy and other church staff. Please contribute to this archive with your own information about child predators in your community.
Stay tuned for more updates about our wider campaign to disestablish the churches responsible for centuries of crimes against the innocent.
The CPAG leaflet is attached and is also reproduced below.
Much love, strength and courage to all of you, and keep us informed of your actions!
The Executive Council,
ITCCS International, Brussels, 10 June 2012
........
Ending the Reign of Terror against Children:
We Will Name and Detain the Guilty
A Public Statement from the Children Protection Action Group*
This church is harboring known child rapists among its staff or clergy who are a constant danger to the children of our community. Because the church is allowed to hide its crimes and protect its rapists, and the police and courts refuse to intervene, we community members must act to defend our children.
We have done so by banding together into local Child Protection Action Groups (CPAG). Our CPAG will publish the names and pictures of child rapists within churches, and we will conduct citizens’ arrests to detain these criminals and deprive them of their office so they can no longer harm our children.
Join us today. The lives of our children and our future as a community are at stake. Child rape in the church is rampant and is escalating, and can only be stopped by an informed and active citizenry.
To provide information on child rapists to our CPAG or to join its actions, contact any of the numbers listed below. And consult our website at www.itccs.org for updates and to access our archive of church child offenders.
*CPAG is a network of community groups in five countries and is affiliated with The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (itccs.org)
Local CPAG Contact Information:
..............................
Read the truth of genocide in Canada and globally at:
www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com (includes documentary film Unrepentant)
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we can not know it.
- Blaise Pascal
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man
- Thomas Jefferson
This email is hosted by Jeremiah Jourdain on behalf of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS). For more information and updates see the ITCCS website atwww.itccs.org or phone 250-591-4573 (Canada).
| itccs.org| The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
The first successful uncovering of apparent mass graves at a former Indian residential school in Can... |
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From the Eagle Watch
June 10, 2012
FYI - We've been hearing a lot of bad things about this extremely cynical dude, Ed John. He may have been hypnotized or under a spell of some sort.
Kittoh
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/bc-treaty-advocate-elected-chair-un-permanent-forum-indigenous-issues/11269
BC Treaty Advocate Elected Chair of UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Grand Chief Edward John has spent the past 20 years in the BC treaty process, which produces extinguishment Agreements
by Kerry Coast
The 11th Session of the top forum for Indigenous peoples in the world began with a lurch. The sixteen-member Forum elected, by acclamation, Grand Chief Edward John to be their Chair. The announcement was made during a preliminary meeting, May 6, 2012, before the two week meeting in New York City. Hailing from Tl'azt'en (northern BC), this Chief will be familiar to anyone who has followed the machinations of the BC treaty process over the last twenty years: John was the founding Chair of the First Nations Summit, an organization formed to “represent First Nations” involved with the BC Treaty Commission (BCTC).
Perhaps, in 1992, the election of a man affiliated with this Summit to Chair the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues – understood to be advancing the cause of self-determination, land rights, and everything else contained in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, would not be an obvious contradiction in terms. However, twenty years later, after the ratification of two extinguishment treaties in that process, this election must be a point of confusion.
When Nisga’a ratified an agreement with British Columbia and Canada in 2000, they released the Nisga’a claim to 100 per cent of their traditional territory in exchange for about 8 per cent of the land back, in Fee Simple Title and with BC holding the underlying title. No alarm bells were rung by Chief John. Every First Nation in BC was watching that process very closely, as they believed, rightly, that future negotiations in the BC treaty process would follow the Nisga’a template.
When, in 2007, Tsawwassen became the first Indigenous people to ratify a Final Agreement produced in the BC Treaty Commission, the text of that document stated:
Tsawwassen First Nation releases Canada, British Columbia and all other persons from all claims, demands, actions, or proceedings, of whatever kind, and whether known or unknown, that the Tsawwassen First Nation ever had, now has or may have in the future, relating to or arising from any act, or omission, before the effective date that may have affected or infringed any aboriginal rights, including aboriginal title, in Canada of the Tsawwassen First Nation.
This clause is also to be found in the Nisga’a Agreement. It is a surrender, rather than the basis of continuing nation-to-nation relations. Tsawwassen made these concessions for a settlement of less than 1 per cent of their traditional territory, held in Fee Simple. The total cash value of the deal was $33.6 million plus self-government funding of $2.9 million annually over the first five years of the treaty – according to government press releases.
Perhaps Chief John takes a leaf out of then-Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl’s book, who declared at the time, “Who am I to say if it’s a good deal or not?”
John is still the Chair of the First Nations Summit today.
Maa-nulth agreed to the same releases when it ratified a Final Agreement in this process later in 2007. Other identical provisions in all three Agreements include the release of Indian Status, including tax-free status; the “modification” (extinguishment) of their aboriginal rights to be only those rights exhaustively defined in the Agreements; the dissolution of the Indian Band; and the termination of Indian Reserve lands: “Fee Simple Lands are not 'lands reserved for the Indians' within the meaning of the Constitution Act, 1867, and are not 'reserves' as defined in the Indian Act.”
The role of the First Nations Summit in these “negotiations” is, in part, to give advice to the federal government for the allocation of treaty negotiating loans to First Nations for the purpose of developing and ratifying Final Agreements under the BC Treaty Commission. These negotiating allowances average a million dollars a year, and the 80 per cent which is a loan comes due the moment a First Nation leaves the process or begins implementation of their Final Agreement.
[This is precisely what has been happening with the ongoing AOO negotiations with 16 ANR's each getting about $1million per year which is a loan payable upon settlement of their puny payoff/claim which will likely be canceled out if ever they actually do conclude the sham that is taking place here in Algonquin Anishnaabe territory. - K]
Staying at the table is an offer most First Nations cannot afford to refuse, especially for those who have been at it since 1993, but the only alternative is to ratify an Agreement and extinguish title. Treaty negotiating loans are not included in government audits of First Nations accounts – perhaps because such a loan would immediately place that community in third party remedial management.
Chief John has stayed with the process throughout and failed to take any meaningful action to indicate his disapproval of the situation, if he does indeed disapprove. He obviously hasn’t resigned in protest.
Self-determination, recently enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, goes out with ratification of these Agreements as well, replaced by what the governments, the Treaty Commission, and the First Nations Summit call “self-government” – powers which amount to little more than municipal business under the heavily qualified “Governance” chapters. The presence in each Final Agreement of identical chapters which circumscribe any exercise of self-determination betrays a theme, one which previous leaders dubbed “the BCTC Death Row.”
According to Chief Negotiator Robert Morales, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, in 2007, “there is one negotiation going on at 47 tables. These were to be government-to-government negotiations, but that’s not how it turned out.”
By 2006, the First Nations Unity Protocol Agreement included all but one of the treaty-going groups in the province, and had made clear the flaws in the process. Morales said, while Chair of the First Nations Summit Chief Negotiators’ table at the time, “The experience we’re having at the Tables and in meetings is that government comes to every table with the same language, with one approach, whether the Nation is small or large, urban or rural. We have realized that we can’t change those policies on our own, even at my table where 6,000 people are represented.”
Since Morales’ statements, letters, and FNUPA actions, which included blockading a Nanaimo ferry sailing with canoes, the HTG has been in abeyance from the negotiating table and entered a petition describing the exhaustion of domestic remedies within Canada to resolve the outstanding land title issue. That Petition was heard in Washington last year by the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and a result has not yet been announced.
At the Opening Ceremonies of the PFII 11th Session at UN Headquarters, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro noted in her address, “…we don’t have to go far to see examples of Indigenous peoples facing discrimination, even extinguishment.”
As she spoke, Chief John was sitting in front of her.
On the second day of the meeting, an intervention by the North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus delivered by Steven Newcomb claimed that “Negotiations such as in Canada under the Comprehensive Claims Policy… lead to the extinguishment of Indigenous peoples.”
The CCP is the basic platform of the BC negotiations, in direct contrast with the 19 Recommendations by the BC Task Force forming the terms of reference or guidelines for the process in 1992. Those guidelines attracted people to the process because they said, in sum, that the government would be open to all types of discussion and conclusions that would lead to real, workable treaties.
Several independent members of First Nations involved in the treaty process have taken their concerns to an urgent action committee of the United Nations’ Committee for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), in 2009. In reports on Canada’s human rights record regarding Indigenous peoples, the CERD has criticized the process, as in 2007, when they wrote:
While acknowledging the information that the “cede, release and surrender” approach to Aboriginal land titles has been abandoned by the State party (Canada) in favour of “modification” and “non-assertion” approaches, the Committee remains concerned about the lack of perceptible difference in results of these new approaches in comparison to the previous approach.
To date, only four Final Agreements have resulted from the negotiating process implemented by the BC Treaty Commission, one rejected in the community ratification vote, one awaiting federal approval, and two in implementation, but all of them leading to the extinguishment of title of the Indigenous nations concerned.
Aside from these, the negotiation process in BC remains stalled largely due to the evident desire of the governments to pursue policies of extinguishment of Indigenous sovereignty rights, and the equally evident desire of the BC Indigenous nations to resist this demand. But they cannot leave the process without triggering the maturation of the negotiating loan.
While Chief John and the Summit Executive exchange polite letters and press releases with Canadian government officials conducting studies on the BC treaty process, and welcoming “recommendations which outline how the federal government can accelerate treaty negotiations in BC” (First Nations Summit Press Release: May 4, 2012), the cost of remaining in the process grows – and the process remains one of municipalization of Indigenous nations which currently have the internationally recognized right to self-determination and demonstrable title to their territories.
Sliammon First Nation is about to go to a ratification vote this summer.
Jackie MukSamma Timothy, a Sliammon Hereditary Chief, wrote of the situation:
So called "Canada's” ignorance of our existing and affirmed Title and Rights and the threat of limited financial support for non-participating Nations forced my people into entering the treaty process. And they keep us on the negotiation table, by threatening to demand all the negotiation funds back at once or to limit our financial support by the federal government accordingly. For my Nation it is impossible to pay the amount back or to forgo financial aid. Moreover, the longer the process takes the more power shifts to the benefit of so called “Canada” and “BC”, because in the end any agreement resulting in any kind of payment is better than none, given the fact that we have to pay the loans back. Loans that would not even be necessary without Canada's wrong-doings and their ignorance of our existing Title and Rights.
The number of irregularities in the BC treaty process is staggering and climbing. It is not unusual for communities to fail to hold a vote annually in order to approve continued borrowing for negotiation funding, or to have votes against continuing the loans ignored, according to vocal Indigenous dissidents. Hereditary Chief Kakila, Tenas Lake, wrote in a letter to the BC Treaty Commission, 2007:
We are advised by the Honourable Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Jim Prentice that these twelve people (the IN-SHUCK-ch Treaty Society) have since 1993 borrowed $9,717,059.00 to engage in these negotiations. We remind that those are the debts of those people alone. In fact, on October 15, 1994, at a duly convened Samahquam General Assembly, for said purpose, the membership specifically voted, by majority, “no” to any proposed Loan Agreements emanating from the British Columbia Treaty Commission.
Most of the original nineteen recommendations of the British Columbia Task Force, which were agreed on by the three negotiating parties forming the BC treaty process, have long since been abandoned: for example, every Final Agreement produced has been taken to court by neighbouring nations for failure to resolve “overlap” claims. Most negotiations currently underway were initiated by a small minority of community members – over whom the rest of the people in the communities cannot regain control: court actions such as Spookw v.Gitxsan Treaty Society et al, 2011, and the recent blockade by members of the Gitxsan against the Gitxsan Treaty Society show how serious this flaw is. By insisting that the small, mostly isolated communities are “autonomous” in their dealings with the treaty process, the First Nations Summit has absolved itself of any responsibility for those First Nations which it claims to represent.
Both the Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth Final Agreements were ratified in votes where "public relations crisis-management" firms were hired by the government to produce pro-treaty propaganda, and where treaty negotiating teams promoted only those prominent community members who endorsed the Final Agreement, and where immediate fiscal rewards for a "yes" vote were offered to community members.
Bertha Williams, a Tsawwassen Member, wrote in a letter to Rudolfo Stavenhagen, Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, July 23, 2007:
I would like to reference some very key items that raise very serious question about the legitimacy of this vote. Under “Members Benefits” two cash incentives to voters are stated.“ In particular it states that “each elder over 60 will receive $15,000, shortly after ratification day” and “approximately $1,000 per member on Effective Date.” I feel that these cash incentive are a bribe to vote YES to the Final Agreement. These are the cash guarantees that are written right into the agreement and that are openly promoted, but I know that there are additional monies paid out just to get people to vote on this agreement. As already set out above, the vote will take place without meeting basic requirements for such a fundamental, constitutional vote.
People are not informed about the real content of the agreement they are voting on, but rather the provincial government is paying for the preparation of propaganda material that points to the few mainly cash incentives of the agreement, but fails to point out all the downfalls, such as the extinguishment of our Aboriginal Title to our territories, the loss of the tax exemption and the long-term loss of programs and services that will all result in the further impoverishment of our people.
Many feel that, as a lawyer whose organization gives advice on the allocation of negotiating loans, Chief John is and was aware of how the loan process itself would leave small and isolated communities trapped between descending into a deeper cycle of debt the longer they stuck to their negotiating claims - or acceding to the extinguishment terms offered by Canada, which can afford to wait the process out. That message has been clearly and repeatedly delivered to the Executive of the First Nations Summit by such groups as the First Nations Unity Protocol, as early as 2006.
But Chief John is considered respectable. Earlier this year he received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, and he is on the Board of Cultural Survival, an international agency which claims to, "publicize Indigenous Peoples' issues through our award-winning publications; mount letter-writing campaigns and other advocacy efforts to stop environmental destruction and abuses of Native Peoples' rights; and we work on the ground in Indigenous communities, always at their invitation."
Most of the Indigenous nations whose territories lie within the Canadian Province of British Columbia have no treaties with Canada.
The recent appearance of Edward John on the Aboriginal People’s Television Network to state that he does not support extinguishment is not an adequate gesture, when read together with his continued involvement, as Chair of the First Nations Summit, in this well-documented extinguishment process.
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues sends the world a mixed message in its choice of Chair, when considering its stated mandate. Perhaps the message will become very clear when the Permanent Forum reports its recommendations, which will be received by the UN Economic and Social Council to advise member states on Indigenous peoples’ rights the world over.
June 10, 2012
FYI - We've been hearing a lot of bad things about this extremely cynical dude, Ed John. He may have been hypnotized or under a spell of some sort.
Kittoh
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/
BC Treaty Advocate Elected Chair of UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Grand Chief Edward John has spent the past 20 years in the BC treaty process, which produces extinguishment Agreements
by Kerry Coast
The 11th Session of the top forum for Indigenous peoples in the world began with a lurch. The sixteen-member Forum elected, by acclamation, Grand Chief Edward John to be their Chair. The announcement was made during a preliminary meeting, May 6, 2012, before the two week meeting in New York City. Hailing from Tl'azt'en (northern BC), this Chief will be familiar to anyone who has followed the machinations of the BC treaty process over the last twenty years: John was the founding Chair of the First Nations Summit, an organization formed to “represent First Nations” involved with the BC Treaty Commission (BCTC).
Perhaps, in 1992, the election of a man affiliated with this Summit to Chair the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues – understood to be advancing the cause of self-determination, land rights, and everything else contained in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, would not be an obvious contradiction in terms. However, twenty years later, after the ratification of two extinguishment treaties in that process, this election must be a point of confusion.
When Nisga’a ratified an agreement with British Columbia and Canada in 2000, they released the Nisga’a claim to 100 per cent of their traditional territory in exchange for about 8 per cent of the land back, in Fee Simple Title and with BC holding the underlying title. No alarm bells were rung by Chief John. Every First Nation in BC was watching that process very closely, as they believed, rightly, that future negotiations in the BC treaty process would follow the Nisga’a template.
When, in 2007, Tsawwassen became the first Indigenous people to ratify a Final Agreement produced in the BC Treaty Commission, the text of that document stated:
Tsawwassen First Nation releases Canada, British Columbia and all other persons from all claims, demands, actions, or proceedings, of whatever kind, and whether known or unknown, that the Tsawwassen First Nation ever had, now has or may have in the future, relating to or arising from any act, or omission, before the effective date that may have affected or infringed any aboriginal rights, including aboriginal title, in Canada of the Tsawwassen First Nation.
This clause is also to be found in the Nisga’a Agreement. It is a surrender, rather than the basis of continuing nation-to-nation relations. Tsawwassen made these concessions for a settlement of less than 1 per cent of their traditional territory, held in Fee Simple. The total cash value of the deal was $33.6 million plus self-government funding of $2.9 million annually over the first five years of the treaty – according to government press releases.
Perhaps Chief John takes a leaf out of then-Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl’s book, who declared at the time, “Who am I to say if it’s a good deal or not?”
John is still the Chair of the First Nations Summit today.
Maa-nulth agreed to the same releases when it ratified a Final Agreement in this process later in 2007. Other identical provisions in all three Agreements include the release of Indian Status, including tax-free status; the “modification” (extinguishment) of their aboriginal rights to be only those rights exhaustively defined in the Agreements; the dissolution of the Indian Band; and the termination of Indian Reserve lands: “Fee Simple Lands are not 'lands reserved for the Indians' within the meaning of the Constitution Act, 1867, and are not 'reserves' as defined in the Indian Act.”
The role of the First Nations Summit in these “negotiations” is, in part, to give advice to the federal government for the allocation of treaty negotiating loans to First Nations for the purpose of developing and ratifying Final Agreements under the BC Treaty Commission. These negotiating allowances average a million dollars a year, and the 80 per cent which is a loan comes due the moment a First Nation leaves the process or begins implementation of their Final Agreement.
[This is precisely what has been happening with the ongoing AOO negotiations with 16 ANR's each getting about $1million per year which is a loan payable upon settlement of their puny payoff/claim which will likely be canceled out if ever they actually do conclude the sham that is taking place here in Algonquin Anishnaabe territory. - K]
Staying at the table is an offer most First Nations cannot afford to refuse, especially for those who have been at it since 1993, but the only alternative is to ratify an Agreement and extinguish title. Treaty negotiating loans are not included in government audits of First Nations accounts – perhaps because such a loan would immediately place that community in third party remedial management.
Chief John has stayed with the process throughout and failed to take any meaningful action to indicate his disapproval of the situation, if he does indeed disapprove. He obviously hasn’t resigned in protest.
Self-determination, recently enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, goes out with ratification of these Agreements as well, replaced by what the governments, the Treaty Commission, and the First Nations Summit call “self-government” – powers which amount to little more than municipal business under the heavily qualified “Governance” chapters. The presence in each Final Agreement of identical chapters which circumscribe any exercise of self-determination betrays a theme, one which previous leaders dubbed “the BCTC Death Row.”
According to Chief Negotiator Robert Morales, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, in 2007, “there is one negotiation going on at 47 tables. These were to be government-to-government negotiations, but that’s not how it turned out.”
By 2006, the First Nations Unity Protocol Agreement included all but one of the treaty-going groups in the province, and had made clear the flaws in the process. Morales said, while Chair of the First Nations Summit Chief Negotiators’ table at the time, “The experience we’re having at the Tables and in meetings is that government comes to every table with the same language, with one approach, whether the Nation is small or large, urban or rural. We have realized that we can’t change those policies on our own, even at my table where 6,000 people are represented.”
Since Morales’ statements, letters, and FNUPA actions, which included blockading a Nanaimo ferry sailing with canoes, the HTG has been in abeyance from the negotiating table and entered a petition describing the exhaustion of domestic remedies within Canada to resolve the outstanding land title issue. That Petition was heard in Washington last year by the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and a result has not yet been announced.
At the Opening Ceremonies of the PFII 11th Session at UN Headquarters, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro noted in her address, “…we don’t have to go far to see examples of Indigenous peoples facing discrimination, even extinguishment.”
As she spoke, Chief John was sitting in front of her.
On the second day of the meeting, an intervention by the North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus delivered by Steven Newcomb claimed that “Negotiations such as in Canada under the Comprehensive Claims Policy… lead to the extinguishment of Indigenous peoples.”
The CCP is the basic platform of the BC negotiations, in direct contrast with the 19 Recommendations by the BC Task Force forming the terms of reference or guidelines for the process in 1992. Those guidelines attracted people to the process because they said, in sum, that the government would be open to all types of discussion and conclusions that would lead to real, workable treaties.
Several independent members of First Nations involved in the treaty process have taken their concerns to an urgent action committee of the United Nations’ Committee for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), in 2009. In reports on Canada’s human rights record regarding Indigenous peoples, the CERD has criticized the process, as in 2007, when they wrote:
While acknowledging the information that the “cede, release and surrender” approach to Aboriginal land titles has been abandoned by the State party (Canada) in favour of “modification” and “non-assertion” approaches, the Committee remains concerned about the lack of perceptible difference in results of these new approaches in comparison to the previous approach.
To date, only four Final Agreements have resulted from the negotiating process implemented by the BC Treaty Commission, one rejected in the community ratification vote, one awaiting federal approval, and two in implementation, but all of them leading to the extinguishment of title of the Indigenous nations concerned.
Aside from these, the negotiation process in BC remains stalled largely due to the evident desire of the governments to pursue policies of extinguishment of Indigenous sovereignty rights, and the equally evident desire of the BC Indigenous nations to resist this demand. But they cannot leave the process without triggering the maturation of the negotiating loan.
While Chief John and the Summit Executive exchange polite letters and press releases with Canadian government officials conducting studies on the BC treaty process, and welcoming “recommendations which outline how the federal government can accelerate treaty negotiations in BC” (First Nations Summit Press Release: May 4, 2012), the cost of remaining in the process grows – and the process remains one of municipalization of Indigenous nations which currently have the internationally recognized right to self-determination and demonstrable title to their territories.
Sliammon First Nation is about to go to a ratification vote this summer.
Jackie MukSamma Timothy, a Sliammon Hereditary Chief, wrote of the situation:
So called "Canada's” ignorance of our existing and affirmed Title and Rights and the threat of limited financial support for non-participating Nations forced my people into entering the treaty process. And they keep us on the negotiation table, by threatening to demand all the negotiation funds back at once or to limit our financial support by the federal government accordingly. For my Nation it is impossible to pay the amount back or to forgo financial aid. Moreover, the longer the process takes the more power shifts to the benefit of so called “Canada” and “BC”, because in the end any agreement resulting in any kind of payment is better than none, given the fact that we have to pay the loans back. Loans that would not even be necessary without Canada's wrong-doings and their ignorance of our existing Title and Rights.
The number of irregularities in the BC treaty process is staggering and climbing. It is not unusual for communities to fail to hold a vote annually in order to approve continued borrowing for negotiation funding, or to have votes against continuing the loans ignored, according to vocal Indigenous dissidents. Hereditary Chief Kakila, Tenas Lake, wrote in a letter to the BC Treaty Commission, 2007:
We are advised by the Honourable Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Jim Prentice that these twelve people (the IN-SHUCK-ch Treaty Society) have since 1993 borrowed $9,717,059.00 to engage in these negotiations. We remind that those are the debts of those people alone. In fact, on October 15, 1994, at a duly convened Samahquam General Assembly, for said purpose, the membership specifically voted, by majority, “no” to any proposed Loan Agreements emanating from the British Columbia Treaty Commission.
Most of the original nineteen recommendations of the British Columbia Task Force, which were agreed on by the three negotiating parties forming the BC treaty process, have long since been abandoned: for example, every Final Agreement produced has been taken to court by neighbouring nations for failure to resolve “overlap” claims. Most negotiations currently underway were initiated by a small minority of community members – over whom the rest of the people in the communities cannot regain control: court actions such as Spookw v.Gitxsan Treaty Society et al, 2011, and the recent blockade by members of the Gitxsan against the Gitxsan Treaty Society show how serious this flaw is. By insisting that the small, mostly isolated communities are “autonomous” in their dealings with the treaty process, the First Nations Summit has absolved itself of any responsibility for those First Nations which it claims to represent.
Both the Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth Final Agreements were ratified in votes where "public relations crisis-management" firms were hired by the government to produce pro-treaty propaganda, and where treaty negotiating teams promoted only those prominent community members who endorsed the Final Agreement, and where immediate fiscal rewards for a "yes" vote were offered to community members.
Bertha Williams, a Tsawwassen Member, wrote in a letter to Rudolfo Stavenhagen, Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, July 23, 2007:
I would like to reference some very key items that raise very serious question about the legitimacy of this vote. Under “Members Benefits” two cash incentives to voters are stated.“ In particular it states that “each elder over 60 will receive $15,000, shortly after ratification day” and “approximately $1,000 per member on Effective Date.” I feel that these cash incentive are a bribe to vote YES to the Final Agreement. These are the cash guarantees that are written right into the agreement and that are openly promoted, but I know that there are additional monies paid out just to get people to vote on this agreement. As already set out above, the vote will take place without meeting basic requirements for such a fundamental, constitutional vote.
People are not informed about the real content of the agreement they are voting on, but rather the provincial government is paying for the preparation of propaganda material that points to the few mainly cash incentives of the agreement, but fails to point out all the downfalls, such as the extinguishment of our Aboriginal Title to our territories, the loss of the tax exemption and the long-term loss of programs and services that will all result in the further impoverishment of our people.
Many feel that, as a lawyer whose organization gives advice on the allocation of negotiating loans, Chief John is and was aware of how the loan process itself would leave small and isolated communities trapped between descending into a deeper cycle of debt the longer they stuck to their negotiating claims - or acceding to the extinguishment terms offered by Canada, which can afford to wait the process out. That message has been clearly and repeatedly delivered to the Executive of the First Nations Summit by such groups as the First Nations Unity Protocol, as early as 2006.
But Chief John is considered respectable. Earlier this year he received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, and he is on the Board of Cultural Survival, an international agency which claims to, "publicize Indigenous Peoples' issues through our award-winning publications; mount letter-writing campaigns and other advocacy efforts to stop environmental destruction and abuses of Native Peoples' rights; and we work on the ground in Indigenous communities, always at their invitation."
Most of the Indigenous nations whose territories lie within the Canadian Province of British Columbia have no treaties with Canada.
The recent appearance of Edward John on the Aboriginal People’s Television Network to state that he does not support extinguishment is not an adequate gesture, when read together with his continued involvement, as Chair of the First Nations Summit, in this well-documented extinguishment process.
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues sends the world a mixed message in its choice of Chair, when considering its stated mandate. Perhaps the message will become very clear when the Permanent Forum reports its recommendations, which will be received by the UN Economic and Social Council to advise member states on Indigenous peoples’ rights the world over.
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"When crazy people call you crazy, you know you're sane.
"When crazy people call you crazy, you know you're sane.
When evil people call you evil, you know that you are a good person.
When lairs call you a liar, you know that you are truthful.
Know who you are and don't let others tell you who you are." - Dave Kitchen
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