Category: Uncategorized

URGENT HELP NEEDED

MNN: April 25, 2008. Mohawks surrounded at the quarry in Tyendinaga. Ontario Provincial Police OPP fully armed with guns drawn. They are yelling through blow horns ordering the Rotiskenekete to come down with their hands up, or else they are going to take them out. The Rotiskenekete have told the OPP they are not coming down from there.

We have been informed that help will probably not arrive in time. The OPP have said they are coming right away. There are 20 left at the quarry. Many have already been arrested.

DO SOMETHING QUICK! WE HAVE TO SAVE OUR PEOPLE.

BACKGROUND from Mohawk Nation News

This situation could be more complicated than
appears at present. The Canadian Special Forces,
which is the main military unit that would be active in the United States under the “Civil Assistance Plan”, is moving the so-called Joint Task Force 2 to the Trenton area, just 25 miles from Tyendinaga. They will be forming a new special forces battalion. Land in the Trenton area is being secretly bought up by the government for a base and training site. A total of 400 hectares (1.5 square miles) will be purchased.

This is Mohawk land. Could this be the reason for the over-the-top reaction by the Ontario
Provincial Police (OPP)? Or is it a case of insiders trying to profit from foreknowledge of the government’s plans?

“JTF-2 plans $220M move: Counter-terrorism unit expected to vacate Dwyer Hill for Trenton.” David Pugliese, with files from Jessey Bird, The Ottawa Citizen (Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2008.)

The Canadian military has earmarked $220 million to build a new base for the Joint Task Force 2 counter-terrorism unit, with plans calling for the secretive formation to move out of Ottawa sometime after 2010.

Defence Construction Canada , a Crown
corporation that handles the Defence Department’s building needs, is asking for
“expressions of interest” from contractors and consultants for the development of what it calls a multi-functional training and administrative campus.

The new facility is to be in ” Eastern Ontario ,” with the specific location considered secret at this point, according to the information provided so far to construction and engineering contractors. But Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier has recommended to cabinet that JTF2’s new base be located at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

Public Works and Government Services Canada has already purchased three properties adjacent to CFB Trenton for the Defense Department.

Those total just under 130 hectares. Another 270 hectares are also being looked at for purchase.

“It’s a number of properties that we’re continuing to negotiate with,” said Public Works
spokeswoman Meeta Bhimani. . . .

In late December, 2007, Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr. was advised by the publisher of the Rio Grande Guardian that his column would be discontinued. This week Jay’s column returns to cyberspace at Narco News. Here are the leading paragraphs:

A Texas Divided Will Be Broken In Two:
South Texas Residents Are Struggling, Together, Like Never Before, to Stop the Border Wall and Militarization Being Imposed from Up North

By Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.
Inside the Checkpoints: Commentary from the Río Grande

January 13, 2008

Just like our country, Texas is allowing itself to be divided in two.

The truth is that the great Texas icons like Moses and Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Will Travis, left the United States and immigrated to the land of opportunity, the provincial territory of the Mexican State of Coahuila called Tejas. These historic legends immigrated to become Mexican citizens.

We pretty much know the rest of the story. All we have to do is “Remember the Alamo.” That battle became a symbol… not of Americans fighting the dictatorship of Mexico… but Mexicans fighting the dictatorship of Santa Ana. Los Tejanos fought los Mexicanos and in 1836, the Republic of Texas emerged. Texas became a separate and independent country. Not American. Not Mexican. But Texan!

In order for the US government to be able to realize the “manifest destiny” of “sea to shining sea,” it had to get the Republic of Texas into the union. Why? Texas was geographically situated between the then United States and Mexico. After a lot of politicking, in December of 1845, the Texas Republic became annexed as a member state of the United States. Within a few months, in the spring of 1846, on a false political pretext, US troops launched a totally unprovoked invasion of Mexico and attacked the Mexican military fort of Palo Alto in what is now Brownsville, Texas… kicking off the two-year Mexican-American war. The US troops then marched all the way into and conquered the Capitol of Mexico, Mexico City.

To view the complete column, please go to Narco News.

But is it not the theological function of prophetic speech to talk precisely ‘as if’? (“Tolerance and the American Pulpit,” Mar. 22, 2008)

One of the major functions of prophetic speech is to castigate society for its failures to follow divine precepts. One of the great precepts of both Judaism and Christianity is the responsibility of those who have to care for those who have not. Examples of this are the Old-Testament duty of farmers to leave behind some food in the fields for the poor to glean so that they may eat, and the fact that Jesus is so frequently shown caring for the poor (to the extent of washing the feet of beggars) — he didn’t serve the military and the politicians, he served the downtrodden and the cast-off. I’d suggest that this is really about all one needs to know about liberation theology. Both Judaism and Christianity are rooted in the idea of social justice.

The great majority of Americans are misled to think that the function of the prophet is to tell the future. The job of the prophet is to call upon society to adhere to the principles of social justice. This was as true for Jeremiah Wright and Martin Luther King,, Jr., (especially after he was enlightened about the relationship between racism and American imperialism and militarism — much like the revelation that Malcolm X experienced on his Hajj) as it was for Amos and Jeremiah.

Jesus and Malcolm and Martin Luther King, Jr. were all killed because the “good people” — those who benefit from our injustice towards society’s victims — couldn’t bear the criticism. And that’s why the hue and cry after Jeremiah Wright. How dare he tell his congregation (and the rest of us, now) that this nation’s actions in Iraq, etc., are just as damnable as they were in Viet Nam, etc.? His repetition of “God Damn America” was using the prophetic voice as a contrast to the obscenity of the imperialist-militarist repetition of “God Bless America”.

Best wishes,
Joel Shimberg
Quaker old-time fiddler
Tennesseee

NOTE: “The Rev. Jeremiah Wright got a raucous standing ovation when he entered Saint Sabina church on the city’s South Side on Friday night . . . He also sang “Happy Birthday” to [Maya] Angelou, whose birthday is April 4. . . . He recently scrapped plans to receive an award in Texas, and to speak at churches in Houston and Tampa, Fla.” (AP, March 29, 2008).

And the winner is Tom O’Neil, a “Gold Derby” writer for the L.A. Times who posed the rhetorical question on Dec. 24, 2007, before the list of Oscar nominees was released:

Surely, Oscar voters won’t snub “Sweeney Todd” (Tim Burton), “There Will Be Blood” (Paul Thomas Anderson), “Atonement” (Joe Wright), “The Great Debaters” (Denzel Washington) and “The Kite Runner” (Marc Forster) entirely.

Of the five films named in the question, Mr. O’Neil was correct about four.

This “Black History Month in Hollywood” special presentation has been brought to you by the Texas Civil Rights Review, because February is about making memories that refuse to go quiet.

And by “White Atlantic” Perfume — Smells Classy!