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November 22, 2007

Steve NewComb Pagans In A Promised Land

Steve Newcomb with Pagan in the Promised Land – 28 minute expose on the Doctrine of Discovery – Papal Bulls of 1493 and how they play out into modern times of Indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere.

Fortunately, despite centuries of genocide and oppression, we American Indians did not die out. We live on. And we continue to persevere, now armed with the colonizers’ own language and conceptual system, which are able to provide us with deep insight into the mentality of the colonizers’ society. Using cognitive theory, it is now possible for us to peer into the inner workings of the dominant society’s collective mind and conceptual system, and to understand the deceptions, such as the doctrine of Christian discovery, used by the United States against our ancestors in the past, deceptions which United States government officials continue to use against us in the present. In short, we are becoming wise to the many ways that the United States government has used the power of the human mind as a weapon against our respective nations and peoples. Accordingly, a belief that indigenous peoples are on a trajectory of liberation and healing based on our sacred birthright as the original free and independent nations of this hemisphere. This program will help energize this spiritual trajectory, for the benefit of Mother Earth and all living things.

Thanksgiving Myths and the Politics of Commemorating Colonial Violence

Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui of “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” WESU- Pacific Affiliate Station, Middletown, CT.

This program will feature two interviews: one with Ramona Peters, Nosapocket, a Mashpee Wamapanoag Indian Artist who has is a Spiritual Cultural Specialist and has served as an Archivist/Curator for the Wampanoag Confederacy Repatriation Project, consisting of the Gay Head (Aquinnah) Tribe, the Mashpee Tribe and the Assonet Band of Wampanoag, and Mahtowin Munro (Lakota), co-founder of the United American Indians of New England who is a key organizer in the National Day of Mourning. I am also hoping to secure a third interview with Linda Coombs, Wampanoag Indigenous Program at the Plimoth Plantation, a bicultural museum about the Wampanoag People and the Colonial English community in the 1600s. A fourth interview with someone from the Mashantucket Pequot Museum would also be ideal in order to address the linkage between the Pequot Massacre and the first official “Day of Thanksgiving” declared by Governor John Winthrop.

“Silent Warrior”, Cross of Changes, Enigma

“Listening/Honor Song", Tribal Voice, John Trudell & Quiltman

Audio clip: Derrick Jensen’s “The Other Side of Darkness: Government of Occupation"

Activist, small farmer, teacher, and philosopher, is the author of A Language Older Than Words and The Culture of Make Believe (a finalist for the 2003 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize) among other titles. Jensen’s writing has been described as “breaking and mending the reader’s heart” (Publishers Weekly). He writes for The New York Times Magazine, Audubon, and The Sun Magazine, among many others. His works have received praise from authors such as Howard Zinn, Ward Churchill, Terry Tempest Williams, and Winona LaDuke among others. Jensen’s speaking engagements in recent years have packed university auditoriums, conferences, and bookstores across the nation. www.derrickjensen.com.

“Along the Watchtower”, Experience, Jimi Experience

“Is Love Enough”, Yell Fire, Michael Franti & Spearhead

“Hold Your Head Up”, Ozomatli, Ozomatli

“Free Your Mind”, Red Thunder, Red Thunder

“Rivers of Belief" (adaptation), MCMXC AD, Enigma

Audio clip: "Making Moccasins" by Kahentinetha Horn (Mohawk)

“My Land”, Good Day to Die, Litefoot

“Kothbiro”, African Voices:Songs of Life, Ayub Ogada

“Burning Times”, Rumours of the Big Wave, Rumors of the Big Wave

Audio Clip: Derrick Jensen's "The Other Side of Darkness: Holocaust"

“Theo’s Dream”, Indians, Indians, Indians, Robert Mirabel

“If 60’s Were 90’s”, If 60’s Were 90’s, Beautiful People

“What I’ve Seen”, Yell Fire, Michael Franti

Kahentinetha (Mohawk) Combing the Snakes Out: Peacemaker, Hiawatha, and Tadahaho

The Peacemaker's message had spread and changed all of the people. One of the people who had accepted the good words of the Creator and decided to help the Peacemaker was Haionwhatha (Hiawatha). Tadadaho was determined to stop this message and its messengers. Tadadaho then went and killed Hiawatha's daughters. Grief stricken, Hiawatha was no longer able to spread the Creator's words. While grieving, Hiawatha found words that would help console others who lost loved ones. He devised a method to remember these words by stringing purple and white fresh water clamshells together on strings. Hence the first wampum was made. Once Hiawatha's mind was clear, he and the Peacemaker were able to confront Tadadaho again. This time they had the support of 49 other leaders from all of the five nations.

It is at this point when they combed the snakes from Tadadaho's hair and he accepted Creator's message and became the 50th chief. They symbolized this union of peace by uprooting a great white pine tree and threw their weapons of war into the hole left by the uprooted tree. They replanted the tree and the Peacemaker placed an eagle on top to warn the Haudenausanee (People of the Longhouse) of any dangers to this great peace. Wampum belts were made to record the event.

“Have Hope”, Jennifer Kreisburg, Jennifer Kreisburg

“How Does Tomorrow Dream”, Madness and the Moremes, John Trudell and Bad Dog

The Birth of Human Rights: Indigenous Contact With Europe and the Origin of International Law

“Who Discovered America”, Ozomatli, Ozomatli

“Red Shift”, Ksa, Ghosthorse

“Time to Go Home”, Yell Fire, Michael Franti

Oannes Pritzker – Wolf Mountain Radio – Radio Free International

The Issue of Sovereignty in Canada, affecting the Indigenous peoples in the United States

Call Ins with Gary Galbreath from VIEW FROM THE SHORE KAOS Olympia 89.3FM, Lucas Anderson from MOLE MEDICINE, & Brian Frisina

"East to the West", Yell Fire, Michael Franti

"Invocation", Follow Me Home, Peter Finch

"Excuse Me Mister", Fight for Your Mind, Ben Harper

"Rumors of Glory", Waiting for A Miracle, Bruce Coburn

"Star Walker", Coincidence & Likely Stories, Buffy Saint-Marie

November 8, 2007

Report on Uranium Project by Harold J. One Feather

My report will be short and will describe to you my goals, objectives and accomplishments as this relates to the Custer National Forest abandoned uranium mines and the extreme health crises in Rock Creek (Bullhead, SD) on the Standing Rock Si\oux Indian Reservation.

I call your attention to the issue of extreme genocide and racism against our people occurring in northern South Dakota resulting from the radioactively contaminated abandoned uranium mines in the Custer National Forest. I have been involved in this issue for nearly ten years beginning in 1997 and have conducted an intensive examination of the facts relating to this critical issue.

In the Rock Creek community, there is an increasing rate of health problems: cancer and cancer deaths, miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, diabetes and kidney diseases, and, sadly, birth defects. I have lost my mother to cancer, my father died of a heart disease, two of my aunts died of cancer, my niece has had two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy; this is my testimony to you, others in the Rock Creek community have the same health problems. That there is an extreme health emergency on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation is not the question, I ask what can we do about this, for our future generations, for those that have lost our relatives?

As one man with limited resources, I could do nothing, my pleas were routinely ignored although I presented the facts to our tribal leadership, and to my community. Feeling a sense of hopelessness, I almost gave up and would have left my reservation with a guilty conscience knowing that our people are dying needlessly.

I have then asked in 2004 for the help of the Defenders of the Black Hills to deliver this message to concerned individuals and to governmental officials: Our people are dying and are getting sick from the abandoned uranium mines.

To date, the Defenders and I have attended several crucial meetings with the US Forest Service relating to their CERCLA/Superfund remediation actions. I like to think that because of our insistence, they received the $22 million reclamation grant from the US EPA and hopefully will reclaim the mines in the near future. Our next step should be to cause the US Forest Service to consider the extreme health crises on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation under the CERCLA/Superfund. This will cause the US Forest Service to speed up the Riley Pass abandoned uranium mine reclamation action as well as reclaim the other mines at the South Cave Hills and Slim Buttes. And hopefully this will cause the US EPA to give technical assistance grants to the affected communities and to the Defenders of the Black Hills to have CERCLA/Superfund explained in layman's terms. This way the rights of the people to have a safe environment will assured for future generations of our people.

We must also never forget to make those atomic bombs and nuclear power plants, they, the mining companies, have poisoned our environment and hurt our people, and they must be held accountable for their radioactively contaminated toxic mines. Tronox, formerly Kerr-McGee, must not be allowed any leniency since they have did a very unexcusable crime against our people.

We have also caused the State of South Dakota to initiate their surface water quality monitoring program for the western river basins except for the Bad River and will sample the water for radionuclide contamination. The Defenders must establish their proposed water quality monitoring project to compare these results with the States' results. To do properly implement the project, we will need funds and a budget, a sampling plan, sampling kits and supplies, intensive research on water issues, a quality assurance and assessment policy manual, and maps.

As some of you know I have volunteered to lead the MySpace group "Defenders of the Black Hills" and have gained thesupport for several key MySpacers. I have placed four videos on the group main page: 1.) Destruction of the Black Hills; 2.) Riley Pass Mining Spoils; 3.) Picnic Springs; and, 4.) Riley Pass Mine. I have also included many important links to the uranium issues in our area including several key photographs of the Riley Pass uranium mine. In my photoblog at MSN Spaces I have many more photos and links to this areas newspaper story about the uranium issue. We have 124 members who are very interested in our activities concerning the Riley Pass mine and the others in the Custer National Forest. We have also all worked on a letter that we should all send to the State governor and to our Congress persons.

With the help of John LeKay, we have also established the Silkwood Project which has interviews from myself, Dr. Helen Caldicott, world-reknown nuclear activist; Timothy Benally, Navajo nuclear activist; Doug Brugge, Tufts University nuclear activist; Diane Stearns, Northern Arizona University biochemist, and William Under Baggage, Indigenous Nations Network environmentalist. The site is full of interesting and scary articles about uranium issues. I would highly recommend that everyone read these articles, John is very thorough in his writing and is extremely intelligent; we are very fortunate that he is helping the Defenders by publicizing our fight for environmental protection and for the uranium issue.

Presently I have been reaching out to the major anti-nuclear movement groups and have been receiving very favorable responses as I hope I will hear from you. My contact phone number is 510-985-0531

Coming from a reservation in South Dakota, with a bare minimal understanding of environmental regulation and nuclear science, and foolishly thinking that there is a honest, unbiased, non-ethnocentric perspective, shared by many people, in protecting the future generations from our "avarice" and wanton wastefulness today; what a rude awakening! Not only was I wrong about the Internet as being a great place to seek more public support for our challenges against the 88 toxic abandoned uranium mines in the Custer National Forest, the in situ leach uranium mining by PowerTech Uranium and other uranium mining companies, and the Black Hills National Forest abandoned uranium mines; I was totally incorrect in believing that the environmental and Native American groups would help us, the Defenders of the Black Hills, in our challenge against their genocide against our tribes. Maybe I am not educated enough to know the difference between what is right and wrong, or maybe I just don't have the words to explain our challenge properly.

But again, hope dawned, giving me solace that at least one person on the Internet would help us in our challenge who established the following website, the Silkwood Project and featured many of our stories in Heyoka Magazine. Educating people about the dangers of uranium poisoning has proven to be an extreme challenge but not one that will prove to be impossible, for instance, on MySpace I established a group for the Defenders of the Black Hills since there are millions of members that also have the environmental consciousness; this too increases awareness of our genocide. And after a short time, we also attracted the assistance of the Western Mining Action Network, Southwest Research and Information Center and Indigenous Environmental Network who provided us with valuable technical advice and supported our Uranium Summit which was held in Rapid City in March 2007.

Many nights I have felt sorrow, knowing that most people in my community of Rock Creek, SD (Bullhead, SD) on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation face the possibility of getting cancer and other uranium-induced illnesses. What saddens me is that it seems like the endangered species affected by uranium mining have more rights than we do even though we are becoming just as extinct.

The truth is that most regulatory authorities established for environmental protection are pro-mining, not pro-earth, and even seem, at times, anti-people! More importantly after reading through many different environmental activists websites, I see that they are actually in league with the mining, energy and logging companies, holding the same view that if they follow certain mandated regulations purportedly enacted to protect the environment, the water and human health, then the ecological unbalancing should be allowed or permitted under certain specified conditions. But what bothers me most about evil synergy between the "environmentalists" and the "exploiters" is that they think that paying reclamation bonds, creating economic and employment opportunities, and mitigating sacred site issues gives them suitable justification to destroy our earth!

But to truly understand this self-destructiveness, we must understand that each of us also indirectly or directly contributes to this profane endeavor through our consumption of electricity, gasoline, heating, air conditioning, agriculture and livestock products and the other plethora of commercial products! The conundrum of the commons at its finest hour, debuting us as its woe-begotten audience, captivating us by its magical taste of invincibility while knowing we are also causing the desolation of our lebensraum-what a bad taste that must be and of course, perhaps many reconcile this eventuality with their own lust of power or powerlessness and sense of futility.

Then, from an economic and survivability standpoint, given the demand for a scarce natural resource, the supply must at least equal this demand for it to remain economically viable; if not, its demand rises to point of near fanatical rush to exploit this resource through whatever means necessary; this, to me, resembles a blood thirsty vampire seeking new prey. What is even more puzzling is: if a natural resource in its natural state is relatively harmless, then at that point where we alter it, making it highly toxic to the environment and to people, does this decrease its demand: I think not?

From my perspective, with respect to in situ leach (ISL)/in situ recovery (ISR) uranium mining, it seems in this instance that all concern goes out the window and in its place is this extreme thirst for profit from exploiting of these toxic uranium poisons: all in the name of being environmentally friendly and solving the GLOBAL WARMING craze. At $113 per pound with input/investment costs at around $1, greed is forcing people to forget that they also drink water and their children and children's children must also drink water; the question is then whether that water will be safe or pure enough for them to drink at all and whether that $112 profit mined today is worth the lives of their children. This occurs regardless of the proven facts that ISL/ISR uranium mining does in fact poison the groundwater as it did in Texas (see for example, "If Only We'd Known," and "Uranium Mining Polluting near the King Ranch").

There are only a few of us that are ardently opposing this sickness in our state, and even fewer realize that once they inject their poisons into our sacred Grandmother Earth, they will also kill those of us living on her surface, all of us, Tetuwan (Seven Council Fires) and white.