Vandana Shiva on the Environmental and Moral Problems with Genetically Modified Seeds

From billmoyers.com.

Vandana Shiva on the Problem with Genetically Modified Seeds

July 13, 2012

Bill talks to scientist and philosopher Vandana Shiva, who’s become a rock star in the global battle over genetically modified seeds. These seeds — considered “intellectual property” by the big companies who own the patents — are globally marketed to monopolize food production and profits. Opponents challenge the safety of genetically modified seeds, claiming they also harm the environment, are more costly, and leave local farmers deep in debt as well as dependent on suppliers. Shiva, who founded a movement in India to promote native seeds, links genetic tinkering to problems in our ecology, economy, and humanity, and sees this as the latest battleground in the war on Planet Earth.

Footage from Bitter Seeds courtesy of Teddy Bear Films

Interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva on sustainability, seed banks, organic agriculture, and spirituality

Uploaded by DedanZumbi on Jan 9, 2012

This is what the male interviewer says about the interview:

Dr. Vandana Shiva and I speak on sustainable ecological agriculture and how it relates to the environmental, culture, nationality and spirituality. I was a bit nervous meeting my heroine and kinda sick from the new Indian environment.

Dr. Vandana Shiva, Speaking in Chattanooga, TN, USA, 26 April 2011

It is always a breath of fresh air to hear radical ecofeminist Vandana Shiva speak out for justice for the Earth and its citizens.

All that follows is from YouTube. With thanks to gaingroundcha, for posting this.

Uploaded by gaingroundcha on Jul 21, 2011

  

On April 26, 2011, environmentalist Dr. Vandana Shiva spoke in Chattanooga as a part of the Benwood Foundation's George T. Hunter Lecture Series. Her speech focused on the environmental issues surrounding industrial agriculture and the solutions our community can focus on to address those issues.

This video was filmed during her 2-day visit to Chattanooga, and features clips from her speech, as well as personal interviews with Dr. Shiva and engaged Chattanooga citizens.

Edited by Linda Duvoisin

"War on the Earth": When Men Treat the Earth Like a Woman To Be Dominated and Abused; Like Whites Treat People of Color; Like the non-Indigenous Treat the Indigenous

photo of Vandana Shiva is from here

All that follows was found at Z Communications, *here*. I welcome the day when men at Z Mag and Z Communications, and AlterNet, and all progressive white male supremacist media, identify "patriarchal abuses" and "male supremacy" as forms of war and destruction; I challenge David Barsamian specifically to do so. Consider this understanding of our global problems put forth by him:

There are multiple crises facing the planet. They're fairly obvious, and are interlinked: climate change, food, and the economic/political crisis.

What is the 'gender' of that economic and political crisis? Which gender rules the most powerfully destructive countries on Earth, internationally? Who is in charge of institutional financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank--women or men? In what ways do economic forces resemble the values and practices of male supremacist forces? Why are most of the world's poor female? Why are most of the world's females poor? We see these questions being taken on by Marilyn Waring, in her work such as If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics, and Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth.

I also hope all pro-feminist and radical anti-racist whites pay attention to the many forces that are killing women around the world, other than patriarchal atrocity and male supremacy as privileged whites experience it. We cannot make sense of the complexities of the world with a single-issue analysis. Nor can we effectively organise against them with a single-issue agenda; this doesn't mean making women less than front and center in the sphere of concern; it does mean listening to women everywhere, not just the most privileged ones, when figuring out how best to resist and rebel. See the work of Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, such as in Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Globalization. 

War on the Earth

David Barsamian interviews Vandana Shiva

By David Barsamian

June 2011

Vandana Shiva provides an international voice for sustainable

development and social justice. She's a physicist, scholar, social

activist, and feminist. She is director of the Research Foundation for

Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi and a

recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel Prize.

She is the author of many books, including Water Wars, Earth

Democracy, and Soil Not Oil.

BARSAMIAN: On receiving the Sydney Peace Prize in November 2010, you
said, "When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and
Afghanistan, but the bigger war is the ongoing war against the Earth.
This war has its roots in an economy which fails to respect ecological
and ethical limits." Tell me more about this war.

SHIVA: This war is being fought, for example, in India across the

country, wherever there are minerals, which happens to be where there

are forests, which happens to be where tribals live. And it's fueled

by the very investor-speculators who brought down the world economy.

Huge money is to be made out of iron ore and bauxite mining. And then

to push consumption, to use more and more of these nonrenewable

resources.

India until 20 years ago never had landfills. But our laws are now

saying they want us to move from 1 kilogram of aluminum use to 15

kilograms per capita of use. Fifteen kilograms multiplied by a billion

Indians means that every mountain will have to be mined, every forest

will have to be destroyed. This generates war against nature because

it devastates ecosystems. But it's also a war against people, because

every human right must be violated, and a war economy, in a real

sense, has to be created.

You say that the war against the Earth begins in the mind. How does
that happen?

The moment you take an Earth in which systems are mutually supporting,

in which forest systems create the weather systems and create the

water systems, where the soil gives us the food—a reductionist,

mechanistic worldview chops up that interconnected nature. That

chopping up, reductionism, is the beginning of the war in the mind.

And this "eco-imperialism," as you call it, has its roots—are we

talking a couple of hundred years now?

All of this was a synergy between colonialism, a conquest of the

South, and defining the people of the South as if we weren't fully

human. A conquest of nature through redefining nature as dead, inert,

manipulable matter. And it was a conquest over the feminine aspect of

every society. The witch hunts were part of it in America and in

Europe because what was being hunted was not women who were witches,

but holistic knowledge and expertise by women. This triple

colonization is really only a few hundred years old, and it has

reached its limits. But those who gain from it, whether its power or

its money would like to push that limit a little longer by

commodifying every aspect of nature.

There are multiple crises facing the planet. They're fairly obvious,
and are interlinked: climate change, food, and the economic/political
crisis.

The interconnections have actually just intensified in the last two

years. We see the financial crisis that created the unraveling of the

economy. Ordinary, hard-working people are paying the price, sometimes

with their lives.

The financial crisis, then, is linked to the energy crisis, because a

fossil fuel-driven economy can only carry on its path of growth by

converting the living earth into oil rather than finding an

alternative economy based on nonrenewables, and they would like to

take renewables and turn them into nonrenewables. The biofuel grab is

part of it. And that biofuel grab is leading to the land grab in

Africa. All of this is also creating the climate-induced catastrophes,

which are then feeding back into food insecurity. So 2010 saw forest

fires in Russia, floods in Pakistan, flooding and then cyclones in

Australia—after about six years of an intensive drought.

Meantime, that same financial gambling game is speculating on food as

a commodity, driving up food prices, which is a big issue in Indian

politics. Recently, nine opposition parties came together to fight the

price rise. We are tied up in these interconnections of a vicious

cycle, where each crisis feeds the other crisis. And bio-imperialists,

who want to use the planet's resources for their own gain and

extension of their power, now use the crisis they have created to say,

"Okay, let's grab Africa. Let's grab the farmlands of India. Let's

grab the last mineral. Let's commodify every bit of food and grain on

this planet," never answering the question, "What happens to 80

percent of humanity?"

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization said food prices in 2010
were the highest in history.

In 2008 there was a spike in food prices and 2010 has gone beyond that

because 2010 has been a combination of real scarcity due to climate

catastrophes, along with the artificial scarcity created by

speculation. And when you have two forces driving prices upwards, and

they are structural, that is why any government who says, "Oh, next

month the weather will be fine" or "the harvest will come," is not

realizing two things. One, industrial globalized agriculture as well

as other fossil-fuel-driven systems have given us climate chaos. It's

not a future issue, it's not a future debate of what will happen in

100 years. People are dying today. The second thing they don't realize

is politicians still try and respond to these crises as if they're

living in isolated nation states, when they themselves have signed a

WTO agreement interlinking the global food system, which means a

problem in one part of the world gets transmitted to the rest of the

world—whether it be a speculation or climate damage.

You mentioned Australia—drought, floods, cyclones. Is extreme weather

an anomaly or is it part of a pattern we're going to see more of?

Climate chaos, as I call it, is a pattern. That's why I am reluctant

to use the words "global warming," in which case you get one snowstorm

and the climate skeptics say, "Oh, this is global cooling? Didn't we

tell you?" As if all the time the temperature will be rising

everywhere rather than what the climate scientists say, average

temperatures across the planet are rising. The second is, when you

talk "climate change," you get other climate skeptics saying, "Oh, we

just adapt to it. And Swedish beaches will become like the tropics, so

isn't that wonderful?" Or "England will get warmer and will now grow

grapes and will become wine country." That kind of stupidity does not

take into account that the same England also gets a snowstorm and gets

stalled for two weeks because they are not a heavy snow country and

have none of the equipment to clean up Heathrow airport.

A large number of Americans seriously doubt there is such a thing as
global warming and climate change. You've studied the issue, you're a
scientist. Is the science solid?

There are reasons why we have to take climate science seriously. It's

not just one or two scientists or single discipline. The

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, is a

multidisciplinary group of 2,500 scientists. Never in the history of

humanity have 2,500 scientists, trained in different aspects of the

environment, resources, the planet, the climate, the atmosphere, put

together their collective expertise from 1988 onwards.

Every ecosystem with an additional burden will have a different

behavior. A river with too much pollution becomes a dead river. An

atmosphere with too much pollution will start having different

patterns, too much snow where there should be no snow, and no rain

where there should be rain. All of this unpredictability needs to be

seen as a phenomenon that people are living through.

Mining issues are key in India. There is the Niyamgiri Mountain issue

in Orissa in eastern India. You've been there. Talk about that and why

it is significant and the push-back and resistance from the people.

They talk of something called the India story. And the India story is

a high-growth story built on the outsourcing of software, creating

Silicon Valleys in Bangalore. But the untold part of the India story

is the outsourcing of pollution and resource extraction. So while most

aluminum and steel manufacturing has shut down in Europe, the U.S.,

and Japan, the consumption of all of these items is being pushed even

further with everything that makes this global economy run. Aluminum

is vital to it. Bauxite is the raw material for aluminum.

Vedanta, a UK-based company owned by an Indian, wanted to mine a

mountain called Niyamgiri, which means the mountain that upholds the

sacred law. Niyam means the law of the universe and giri means

mountain. The most ancient tribes of the Dongria Kondh have been

living on this mountain since the beginning of their own memory.

They've resisted the bauxite mining. In spite of it, Vedanta managed

to set up a refining plant and a smelter in the valley and further

downstream. Because of the protests, they were never able to get to

the bauxite, even though the courts and the Ministry of Environment

were manipulated.

The interesting thing is there is another plant in Orissa which is

called Posco. It is a Korean steel plant, but our research shows it's

actually owned by Wall Street. The majority of shares are owned by

Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. The World Bank forced the privatization

of this plant in the Southeast Asia financial crisis. They want 4,000

acres of the coast with a captive port and parkland. Then, of course,

they want mines. Most of the iron ore they mine will go straight out

to Korea and China. Some will be processed in an export zone, also for

export.

Tell me how rivers can be sold.

Both aluminum and steel making are highly energy-intensive and

resource-intensive processes. They are extremely water-intensive

processes. Entire rivers are being rerouted for steel and aluminum

making. The River Shivnath in Chhattisgarh is flowing through tribal

areas. We use our rivers to go down and wash our clothes, to bathe.

Our buffalos and our cows go to the river. The river recharges all of

the groundwater around it. The River Shivnath, 22 kilometers of it was

privatized, to bring water to Jindal's steel plant. In order to

privatize it, people could not access the river water, they could not

access the groundwater in their own fields and wells.

It's very much like the privatization of water in Bolivia where, when

Bechtel faced resistance, they said, "You can't have this water on

your roof, you can't take water in your well." And the Bolivian people

said, "So you now own the rain and you own the groundwater?" That's

what the people of Chhattisgarh said. That project had to be

cancelled. This was a direct legal transfer of a river to a private

company.

De facto privatization is happening everywhere. When you look at

Vedanta, their aluminum factory has totally rerouted the Indravati

River that flows southward, moved it northward, had it dropped into a

river called Hati Tel River to then service this huge aluminum

smelter. The Tatas, when they expanded their Jamshedpur factory, put

dams on two tributaries of Suvernarekha River, and that was 100

percent water for Jamshedpur. We fought the privatization of Delhi

water, which was going to bring water up into the Himalaya from the

Tehri Dam, and Suez was going to then sell it at 10 times the normal

price that we pay for water. So whether it's for a city or a steel

plant, an aluminum plant, they're such thirsty projects that they have

to steal water from people and from nature.

But this other story of the emerging economy, the giant with 9 percent

growth, is a joint construction of the Indian elite and the global

elite. The global elite, of course, spun the globalization story. The

global elite need the success of the model of globalization, of free

trade, of corporate-driven economies. They have to constantly sell

that.

They first tried to sell it through the Southeast Asian countries. You

remember there was a period when the East Asian tigers and the dragons

were the poster children of globalization. In 1997 that collapsed. The

West was its own poster child. After 2008 that collapsed. So if that

fake story of globalization and corporate control has to continue,

they've got to have some poster child. And they're hanging desperately

to the India of today, with its rising billionaires, but constantly

more and more impoverished people. We have some of the richest people

in the world today: the Ambani brothers, the Mittals, and Anil Agarwal

sitting in England. They are using the India story as a subcomponent

of the globalization story.

But nobody tells the story that this has pushed half of Indian

children to severe malnutrition, that every fourth Indian is today

hungry. That the land wars are being fought between the poor, who want

to defend their quarter-acre land, against the richest of these

people, who are engaged in a big land grab.

You also talk about agriculture and militarized language.

The Copenhagen Treaty agreement on climate change should have brought

us to the next level of legally binding agreements to bring down

emissions because the Kyoto Protocol period was running out, climate

catastrophes were getting worse, and something needed to be done.

Instead, President Obama came, bullied four other countries—the so-

called rising powers of China, India, South Africa, Brazil—and signed

this Copenhagen Accord, which is a non-accord in terms of legally

binding commitments.

The world is waiting for another paradigm, another worldview, another

way of centering our lives. The West needs it because their economies

are collapsing. The South needs it to prevent their economies from

being totally wiped out, because I believe it's cultures that define

their rights through the Earth that have the strongest struggle even

for their own rights. I've seen it with every land movement.

Is there a connection between capitalism and environmental

degradation?

There is a very intimate connection with the rise of capitalism and

the plunder of nature, because capitalism located wealth in capital,

which is just a construct. It's in human imagination. And it gave

power to those who owned capital to then start owning the resources of

the Earth. The privatization of rivers, the privatization and

patenting of seeds (the basis of my work in Navdanya) the

privatization of the atmosphere for emissions trading, all of these

privatizations are defending the rights of capital and allowing

capital to expand its control, because capital is an abstract.

Given the urgency, it seems to me individuals are limited in what they

can do and that collective action is required.

Individuals acting consciously as members of society and collectives

is what we need. The two things we need that everyone can do are,

first, a shift in the mind. If these wars are wars in the mind, then

the place to make peace is in the mind, peace with nature and peace

with each other. Creating living economies, a movement we've tried to

build through Navdanya here, local living economies, but a movement

that's very strong in the U.S., is something people can start engaging

in today. If they don't, they will have nowhere to turn to. Our

calculations show that even though global corporations have the power

to reach the last resource, they only have the power to generate

employment for 3 percent of humanity. You can't have a system where

100 percent of resources are owned by probably 15 to 20 corporations,

and 3 percent are hired for them to do the stealing of the planetary

wealth. So you need to have other ways for people to look after

themselves.

You cannot do that individually. You can begin the shift in your mind,

but framing other economies and framing other ways of structuring

society has to be a collective enterprise, because what was killed by

the privatization of the economy was a very collective identity, the

identity that we are interconnected. And Margaret Thatcher saying,

"There is no society, there is only individuals," is part of that

market individualism of atomizing us, making us lonely, isolating, and

telling us we have nowhere to turn.

Just like Evo Morales removed the censorship on the rights of Mother

Earth, India is a civilization based on the recognition of the Earth

as a living system, as our living support, and peace with the Earth as

our duty.

This ancient prayer has always been my inspiration. It is from the

Bhoomi Sutra of the Athara Veda. And it says:

May there be peace with space and the skies,

Peace with the atmosphere,

Peace with the waters.

May there be peace with the earth.

May there be peace with the herbs, the plants, the trees.

May all the divine beings pervade peace.

May the peace that pervades all creation

Be with you.

The Cloud People and the Valley People: a tale of political privilege and structural location

image is from here

Once upon a time there were two groups of people who lived by a very tall and massive mountain. One group lived on it—atop it, and they lived so high up that clouds formed down from their view, filling the sky completely and blocking their sight to the world below the cloud-cover. So regular was this barrier of white moisture in the air that the mountaintop people had no idea anyone else lived in the region and thought the sky was what surrounded them.

But far below them, and below the clouds, and below the mountain's mass, at the base, in a valley, lived another people who only looked up and saw only clouds. Unlike their neighbors to the sky's north, they knew there were people living above the whiteness, but were usually struggling to endure conditions that the “Cloud People” couldn't imagine. They couldn't know because it required knowing what happened to things that disappeared below the cloud-line. Things like their trash, garbage, and human waste. You see, when the cloud people urinated or defecated, it all flowed down the mountainside into the area where the Valley People lived.

The land of the valley was historically naturally rich in life and nutrition, but as the Cloud People's population grew, so too did the amount of waste that went to the base of the mountain. This meant that while the mountaintop's life was not naturally as rich, it became healthier environment simply due to the fact that the waste generated there, that wasn't collected and composted by its producers, spoiled the quality of life for the Valley People, leaving life above healthier by comparison.

The Valley People knew how to compost; they had done this with their own waste products for decades. But the natural resources to do this sustainably were overwhelmed by the waste pouring in from the mountaintop. Quality of life was determined by delicate balance of things naturally generated and those produced by humans. The Cloud People weren't as practiced at maintaining this balance because they never saw what their own waste did to the land, and people, below them. This ignorance was a crucial determinant of their social ethics and environmental practices.

Over the years, ignorance was fueled as the stench and toxicity from above was kept out of the nostrils of the Cloud People by the moisture barrier in the sky. To them, the world was perfect. To the people below, it got increasingly unhealthy.

Out of desperation, it was decided that a representative from the valley would be sent up to negotiate peace with the people above. A middle-aged woman who was known for her physical endurance and wise negotiating skills, was sent with provisions to last her for the days it would take her to rise above the clouds. No one from below had ever done this before, and they couldn't be certain how long the journey would take, so before she left she spend a whole year studying the plant and animal life closer to the clouds, to know what she might eat if she ran out of food. One thing she knew to be wary of: the polluted water running down the mountainside into the rivers and lakes supplying the water to her people. She was hopeful that by the time of her return to the valley, the pollution stream would be a thing of the past.

What she found when she reached the top was something she didn't expect: the Cloud people regarded her as an alien invader. So ignorant were they about life below the cloud line that it never occurred to them people—human beings—lived anywhere else other than where they were. Their language was different from hers but it didn't take long for her to learn it and be conversational. Eventually she got them to accept that she was as much as part of the world as they were. And she welcomed them to send representatives back with her so they could verify what she was telling them about the negative impact of their waste on her people's lives.

They found someone they trusted to report back exactly what was found. A young man was chosen. Before they left together, she got the Cloud people's council to agree that if their own representative reported that their lives were doing the damage that the Valley woman described, they would be more responsible about where their own waste went.

She led the young man down below the cloud line. He was amazed as the valley came into view, growing larger and more detailed as they descended the mountain. But once he'd arrived he was repulsed by the stench in the areas where the Cloud people's waste flowed and pooled. She told him, “If you would recommend to your people that you compost your own waste before sending it down the hill, we'd appreciate it.” He said, “It never occurred to me that anyone was being impacted by our waste!” She said, “I know. And now you do. So please do the responsible, loving thing.”

As he walked among the Valley People, observing their ways, he noted how they were much more aware of all the Life around them, including above the cloud line, and how it effected everything else. He reflected on how the worldview of his people, the Cloud People, only included their own experience—their surroundings, but only as far as their eyes could see. Most of reality, in fact, was hidden from them beyond the clouds. But that didn't mean there was nothing there. He feared he would have a hard time convincing some of his people of this. He worried more that his people wouldn't understand or appreciate that the Valley People's well-being should matter exactly as much as their own.

Indigenous Event Alert: Happy Aboriginal Day!

Source: Canadian Heritage and here

To my Aboriginal and Native siblings everywhere, but particularly the Inuit, Métis, and First Nations people in Canada: Happy Aboriginal Day! May this day revitalise the Spirit of All Our relations.

A special hope for a day of celebration to Avi and Clifford. <3

What follows may be linked back to by clicking on the heading.

Happy National Aboriginal Day!

Today is the summer equinox, the longest day of the year, and officially recognized in Canada as National Aboriginal Day. For those of you who are Aboriginal (or native, Indian, Indigenous - OK, that's another blogpost), I'm sure every day is Aboriginal day, but it's still a nice gesture that the Governor General proclaimed this day, back in 1996 as an officially recognized day to celebrate our cultures.

So for those of you who have the day off to do just that, enjoy yourselves. For those who have to be at work, then at least spend a few minutes saying hello to all your Aboriginal friends, watch an Aboriginal film (Dances With Wolves doesn't count), attend a National Aboriginal Day event in your neighbourhood or find some other way to celebrate that won't get you or your boss in trouble.

We still have a long way to go; I am reminded of Ottawa comedian Don Kelly's great line: "Wonderful. We Aboriginal people get a whole day. In Ottawa, even the tulips get a week!"

But still - it's still a good day to be indigenous (or Indian or Aboriginal--OK, I know, enough already)

News:
From APTN's Aboriginal Day Live and Festival website. Please click on the article title below to link back.

APTN Announces 2011 Flag Contest Winner

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) is pleased to announce sixteen-year-old Taylor Vanasse is the winner of the fifth annual Aboriginal Day Live Flag Contest. Vanasse’s winning design was chosen from a total of 208 entries received from across Canada.

Vanasse, who resides in Plantagenet, Ontario, designed her flag to show the various Aboriginal cultures in Canada and some of their customs, beliefs and general ways of life. She wrote, “The inukshuk and dog sled represent Arctic tribes like the Inuit. The canoe, the water, the fish and the tipis represent hunting, transportation and shelter. The turtle depicts spirituality and also refers to the Iroquois creation story (Turtle Island – The Creation of North America). Finally, the eagle represents leadership and skill while the feathers are an ode to all Tribal Chiefs and Elders who provided wisdom and guidance to all who needed it. The earth is a symbol of togetherness.”

Her design will be officially unveiled during APTN’s Aboriginal Day Live show in celebration of National Aboriginal Day on Saturday, June 18, 2011. The show will be broadcast live across the nation from Winnipeg, Manitoba. As part of her prize, Vanasse will receive a trip to Winnipeg to be part of the Aboriginal Day Live celebrations and will also receive a cash prize of $500. Additionally, the Rockland District High School, where Vanasse attends, will receive $750 towards the purchase of learning materials.

The winning design will be made into a flag that will be flown above APTN headquarters in Winnipeg, replacing the one created by APTN Aboriginal Day Flag Contest 2010 winner, Dylan Willett. Mini versions of the flag will be distributed to the crowds attending APTN’s Aboriginal Day Live 2011 concert.

Entries from the 2011 contest can be seen on APTN’s Aboriginal Day Live Flag Contest web page or on display in the front window of APTN’s head office in Winnipeg.

Events are from the Vancouver Sun, *here*.

 

Brandy McCallum performs at Trout Lake.

Photograph by: Handout, Files

National Aboriginal Day events today include a free pancake breakfast at 8:30 a.m. at Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre, 1607 E. Hastings.

At 11 a.m., a parade will leave the centre and head along Commercial Drive to Trout Lake where a community celebration takes place from noon to 5 p.m. Performers include Akachuk Children Hoop Dancers and Brandy McCallum. There will also be a teepee village, powwow dancing, arts and crafts tables, a resource fair and canoeing. Organizers expect to feed at least 1,200 people hamburgers and hotdogs during the free community lunch. Details at www.bcnationalaboriginalday.com

At Oppenheimer Park, 400 Powell, free events start at 11 a.m. and go to 4 p.m. Performances take place all day by groups ranging from Harmony of Nations and Ricky Lavallee to Sonny B and Sitting Still Thunder Drum Group. Details: (604) 253-8830.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Indigenist Event: Western Shoshone Defense Project 2011 Spring Gathering

image is from here

Western Shoshone Defense Project
2011 Spring Gathering

May 27th, 28th, 29th - 2011
DATE: May 27th, 28th, 29th

PLACE: The Dann Ranch – Base Camp – Crescent Valley, Nevada (Newe Sogobia)

“Camp Out Event”
“ Bring your camping tents, and family”
Food donations welcome!

Breakfast – Lunch - Dinner
Donations are accepted at site
Prize Drawings – Raffle’s
Story Telling
Up-Date on Shoshone Struggles
Special Guest Speakers
Agenda will be provided at site

If you want to assist or be a part of the activities please contact Larson Bill at 1-775-744-2537 , cell 1-775-397-6726. Help is requested a week before the event to set up the Camp and other logistics, your participation would be greatly appreciated. Directions to the site be posted along the road.

Hope to see you there.

For More information contact: Larson Bill – 397-6726- 744-2537

For more Indigenist alerts and news, please see:
CENSORED NEWS: Western Shoshone Spring Gathering May 2011

bsnorrell.blogspot.com

End:Civ Resist or Die (Full Movie), with Waziyatawin, Lierre Keith, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Derrick Jensen and more

"Environmentalism", to me, is the White Man's term to describe something that is part of non-defiled Indigenous traditions called "living". The White Man seeks to defile and destroy everything he possibly can about Indigenous life--including the people. But also the ways of being, the values, the worldview, the practices, and the spirituality and religions. When people tell me "I'm anti-religion" I wonder what religions they are speaking about--well, I don't, actually. I already know: they mean one or two of three religions--the Ibrahimic/Abrahamic ones: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, named here in reverse chronological order. They never, ever mean Indigenous religion, because they don't think of Indigenous people as having a religion. They don't think of Indigenous people, usually.

Environmentalism is what white men have done with Indigenous ways of being, pretending it is the White Man who must save the day, and the Earth. These men ignore not only the on-going work of Indigenous activists globally, but of ecofeminists. Environmentalists are a notoriously sexist/misogynist bunch of men; virtually all bunches of men are sexist and misogynistic. They ought not be listened to, made into heroes, leaders, given awards, proclaimed as the new Messiah, and so on. The White Man must follow, not lead. He has led us into hell and he doesn't know how to get us out.

In case it isn't yet clear, I don't have faith in the White Man's ways of being, his values, worldview, practices, or spirituality and religions. He appropriates and exploits everything he touches. It's like The Midas Touch story except that everything he touches turns to CRAP.

There are very few white men I hold deep respect and regard for. Most of the activists I feature on this blog are neither white nor male, for a reason. I believe both whiteness and manhood, as socially constructed and politically acted out, are poisonous and inhumane. One of the white men I believe is doing good work is Derrick Jensen, and he is one of the key people involved in the production of a new film called End:Civ Resist or Die.

Derrick asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

The answer is that many people have been resisting all along, but not nearly enough people who are white and male, and those who are activist resisters who are white and male do not usually hold themselves accountable to activists who are women of color.

I am drawn to watch this movie because it is not a movie about the experiences of white men only, as most films are in North America. This means that actual human beings who are not white or are not male are spoken to and with as if they had something important to say. You won't find that happening on CRAPitalist media, unless the women or men of color are saying exactly what the White Man wants them to say.

Please click on the link below to return to the film's web page. All that follows if from there. At some point I may offer a review of the film here. But for now, please watch it.

http://endciv.com/

END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don’t have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system — it seems to be coming apart already.

But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future.

Backed by Jensen’s narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land. The film trips along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. END:CIV illustrates first-person stories of sacrifice and heroism with intense, emotionally-charged images that match Jensen’s poetic and intuitive approach. Scenes shot in the back country provide interludes of breathtaking natural beauty alongside clearcut evidence of horrific but commonplace destruction.

END:CIV features interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin,  Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan and more.

“A fierce critique of systematic violence and industrial civilization, End:Civ is not intended for garden-variety environmentalists. If you are anywhere below, say, an 8 on that sliding scale of pissed off, then this film is going to scare you — which means you should watch it.”
-Eugene Weekly

.”A tour de force film from Franklin López which does more than justice to Derrick Jensen’s thesis that industrial civilization is destroying life on the planet.  Employing all the contemporary audio visual techniques our digital world makes possible for a single brilliant penurious filmmaker, López harvests sounds and images from our demented world to relentlessly show the rape of the mind and the earth.  To those outside the small choir who see the message of resistance as obvious, this powerful film makes them deal with it either by denial or acknowledging, yes I see it is obvious.”
James Becket
-Director of The Best Revenge

“Franklin Lopez is a fantastically talented filmmaker, who has created a powerful and important film about the most important topic ever: how to stop this culture from killing the planet.”
-Derrick Jensen, Author of Endgame

“By far the most routinely praised contemporary media activist is Franklin López. His shows and films not only possess a distinctive look and feel, but they also contain a wicked sense of humor that is often sorely lacking among alter-globalization activists. López’s work engages in constructing a new vision where popular culture serves the interests of the poor and dispossessed, where humor is reignited within activism, and the D.I.Y. ethics of punk and hip-hop allow those with talent and gumption to be the media, once again.”
-Chris Robé, Pop Matters

“Franklin Lopez’ END:CIV is a labour of love, a stunning 75 minutes film…”
John Zerzan, author of Future Primitive

“It brought me to tears…” “I recommend it to people”
-Alex Smith, Host of Radio Ecoshock

“Franklin Lopez’s END:CIV project is awesome.”
-Shannon Walsh, Director of H2Oil

“Both the quantity and the quality of this movement’s filmmaking is increasing. This is the big battlefield on which we fight right now.”
-Michael Rupert, CollapseNet.com

Franklin López will be touring with END:CIV in 2011.

The END:CIV DVD by PM Press can be ordered now. 

If you wish to book a screening in your town or want to order a DVD, simply click on the links below.

Order DVD — Book a community screening — Book a university screening
Upcoming Shows:

END:CIV with Director Franklin López  

Date	City	Venue	Country
Tour: END:CIV TOUR
05/11/11	END:CIV with Director Franklin López in Kingston, ON	AKA Autonomous Social Centre	Canada
Add Add to Google Calendar Download iCal	Time: 7:00pm. Address: 75 Queen St.. With Aric McBay
05/13/11	END:CIV with Director Franklin López in Peterborough, ON	The Cannery Art Centre	Canada
Add Add to Google Calendar Download iCal	Time: 7:00pm. Admission: Sliding Scale: $5-$50 (no one wi. Address: 168 Hunter St. W..
05/14/11	END:CIV with Director Franklin López in Toronto	Detour Bar	Canada
Add Add to Google Calendar Download iCal	Time: 7:00pm. Admission: $5-$1- PWYC – No one turned away. Address: 193 Baldwin St. Buy tickets
05/16/11	END:CIV with Director Franklin López in London, ON	Lifespin	Canada
Add Add to Google Calendar Download iCal	Time: 7:00pm. Admission: 5-10$ suggested donation (nobody. Address: 866 Dundas St.. Opening night of the London Anarchist Film Festival
05/17/11	END:CIV with Director Franklin López in Waterloo	University of Waterloo – EIT room 1015	Canada
Add Add to Google Calendar Download iCal	Time: 7:00pm. Admission: 0-50 PWYC.

END:CIV  

Date	City	Venue	Country
Tour: END:CIV TOUR
05/15/11	END:CIV in Copenhagen	Folkets Hus	Denmark
Add Add to Google Calendar Download iCal	Time: 7:00pm. Address: Stengade, 50. Sponsored by The Climate Collective A discussion will follow. “how do we fight?”
05/21/11	END:CIV in Austin	Austin Zen Center	United States
Add Add to Google Calendar Download iCal	Time: 7:00pm. Admission: FREE. Address: 3014 Washington Sq. Venue phone: 512-452-5777.

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For more tour dates click here

END:CIV by subMedia.TV is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at blip.tv.
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Order END:CIV DVD

Published by Resister on 2010/11/01 in endciv. 18 Comments

SHIPPING NOW
END:CIV DVD’s can be ordered in several ways.

1. US and Canada orders – $19.95 + $5.00 shipping.
2. International orders – $19.95 + $10 shipping
3. Pack of 10 DVD’s – $150
4. Community Screening Kit – $200*
5. For Institutions, libraries and Universities – $200
All prices include shipping world wide.
*The community screening kit includes 10 DVD’s, 10 promotional posters and a press kit.

License Type

US & Canada $24.95 International Orders $29.95 10 Pack $150.00 Institutional $200.00 Screening Kit $200.00

Region 0 DVD-NTSC
Total running time: 75 Minutes
Subtitles: Spanish, English, German, Slovak, Italian and Romanian

The END:CIV DVD is published and distributed by PM Press

Chellis Glendinning on Empire, Europe, and Global Sustainability

With thanks to Lauren for letting me know about her work. Thanks, Lauren!! And thank you, Chellis, for writing about CRAP and dissociation. I'm only now beginning to familiarise myself with Chellis's work.

Indigenist Event and Action Alert: Mining Corporations vs. the Oglala Lakota Oyate and the Earth. Who will win? See this for more...

image is from here

Genocide and ecocide are all around. But few people wish to see it who aren't experiencing the devastation, such as in Alabama and Mississippi--due to ferocious hurricanes directly caused by Global Warming by the White Man. Even fewer wish to do anything about it. That's a tragedy and a failure of white humanity to be humane--again.

Please support Indigenous activism and anti-genocide and pro-Earth events and organising. What follows is from Censored News, with thanks to Brenda. Please click on the links just below to visit to that website about this and many other Indeginist actions taking place that need support.

Wounded Knee, SD Environmental Film and Forum

Environmental Awareness Film Presentation and Forum

Location Wounded Knee District School Gym
Saturday, May 7, 1 pm to 7 pm

"The condition of Mother Earth is approaching a crisis for all human beings. Sacred water has been under attack for generations now and only in isolated pockets around the world are people fighting to preserve water. This is especially true in Indigenous communities where sources for clean, safe drinking water are under threat by mining. On the Pine Ridge reservation on the Northern Plains of North America, the Lakota people are taking a stand against uranium......"

All people are invited to participate in this event which includes the presentation of three short films, dialogue on the condition of sacred water and health, a live performance by the band SCATTER THEIR OWN whose performance will include their latest song about Mother Earth, and presentations by environmental activists as well as tribal officials regarding environmental impacts by mining corporations to the Oglala Lakota Oyate and all human beings, water, air, land, and all of sacred life.

Open microphone for participants to voice their concerns and comments about protecting our sacred Mother Earth.

Refreshments will be provided at the conclusion of the event.

Sponsors include Owe Aku, Vic Camp, 407-7808; Lakota Media Project, Rosebud White Plume 319-1367; H.E.L.P. Autumn Two Bulls, 441-7369; Looks For Buffalo Foundation, Floyd and Natalie Hand, 867-5762.

An Environmental Awareness Film Forum will be held on Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 1pm at the Wounded Knee District School in Manderson, SD. Three films will be screened, followed by Guest Speakers to present updates on the environmental protection work they are involved in. The films include Water Is Life by Art Is Action, which is an 8 minute show that chronicles the impacts of uranium mining to the drinking water and health conditions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and that examines the dwindling drinking water supply in this area; the 28 minute film Poison Wind by 220 Productions, which shares the voice of the Navajo Nation and other tribal peoples in the southwestern United States who are impacted by uranium mining; and a work in progress by Prairie Dust Films which documents support for and opposition against uranium mining in Nebraska and in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Guest speakers include the film makers, governmental and health officials from the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Indian Health Service and environmental activists working in this region. Oglala Sioux Tribal President John Yellow Bird-Steele has confirmed his attendance. Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal staff will be present to address cultural and historical preservation work in the area regarding the proposed tarsands XL Keystone oil pipeline of Transcanada, Inc. which is planned to skirt the boundaries of the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. Plaintiffs in the case against the Canadian-based corporation Cameco, Inc. will be present to discuss their case regarding current and proposed In Situ Leach Mining near Crawford, Nebraska. State officials have been invited and it is hoped they will be in attendance.

Live music will be provided by the popular group “Scatter Their Own”, headed by Oglala Lakota Scott Clifford, who will perform a recently released song about Mother Earth and the Black Hills. A local drum group will open and close the Film Forum with traditional Lakota music.

Open microphone time at the forum is available so those present can make comments or share environmental protection work they are involved in. All people are invited and encouraged to attend.

The Film Forum is free and open to everyone, refreshments will be served. The event is sponsored by Owe Aku, (Bring Back the Way), the Lakota Media Project, Project H.E.L.P., and the Looks For Buffalo Foundation. For more info please call Vic at 407-7808, Rosebud at 319-1367, or Autumn at 441-7369.

Earth Day: March or April? And who is truly working to Take Back The Earth?

photograph of Winona LaDuke is from here

Winona LaDuke is an activist, writer, and the founding director of  WELRP. See *here* and below for more:

We work to continue, revive, and protect our native seeds, heritage crops, naturally grown fruits, animals, wild plants, traditions and knowledge of our indigenous and land-based communities; for the purpose of maintaining and continuing our culture and resisting the global, industrialized food system that can corrupt our health, freedom, and culture through inappropriate food production and genetic engineering.

From the WELRP website:

Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservations, and is the mother of three children. She is also the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, where she works on a national level to advocate, raise public support, and create funding for frontline native environmental groups.

In case you haven't noticed, there are patterns and systems at work in the destruction of the Earth. Wealthy white men, corporate capitalists, and government leaders are all key power-brokers working very hard to kill everything on Earth in order to earn profits and gain power for the very short term.

What you are likely to see in corporate media news is how whites do good things to help decrease pollution or trash. What you are not likely to see in the same media is how white men do atrocious things to Indigenous people, women and girls of all colors and nations, and the Earth.

*Here* is a discussion of the history of Earth Day by Adam Monroe, which seeks to keep the idea that it is white men who care about the Earth: a blatant lie if viewed on the collectivist level. On the systemic and collectivist level it has been Indigenous People globally who have always fought for the Earth's survival, and their own; living sustainably with the Earth traditionally, historically, is not a white cultural tradition. The white tradition is to consume everything in and on the Earth, giving back nothing but poisons, toxins, and pollutants.

*Here* is the promotion of a book that also makes the case it is the White Man who can rescue the Earth from white men. Work for the Earth by promoting and supporting the efforts of Indigenous people around the world, including by advocating for land being returned to the Indigenous people from whom it was stolen by European men. Support and remember Indigenous Feminism and Indigenist Feminists in the U.S.

End the myth of the White Male Hero. His time to lead has passed. Promote the Indigenous Woman Hero Reality. Her time has never left.

Anti-Genocide and Indigenous Action Alert: Treaty 8 First Nations in Oil Sands Region: Traditional livelihoods threatened

photo of Chief Allan Adam (Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation) is from here

Please click on the title below to link back to the source where I found this, at Censored News. With thanks to Brenda Norrell.

Treaty 8 First Nations in Oil Sands Region: Traditional livelihoods threatened

Draft Land Use Plan Infringes Treaty 8First Nations in Oil Sands Region say that the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan does not protect enough land and resources to sustain their traditional livelihood and creates legal risk for Alberta

By Chief Allan Adam, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
April 8, 2011, Fort McMurray

On April 5, 2011, Alberta Government’s Department of Sustainable Resource Development, headed by Minister Mel Knight, released the draft Lower Athabasca Region Plan (LARP).  The draft plan proposes a 16% increase to conservation areas in the oil sands region, which is significantly less than the recommendations from the Regional Advisory Council (RAC), who advised up to 32%, and considerably less than recommendations from First Nations.

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, who has aboriginal and treaty Rights throughout the LARP area are left wondering how they will sustain their traditional livelihood and protect their cultural existence on what amounts to scattered, small parcels of land.  According to Chief Allan Adam the LARP represents “… an economic assimilation of our people.  How can we maintain our culture, protect our livelihood and continue practicing our treaty rights under these conditions.  LARP is an infringement of our Rights and the government has a duty and obligation to ensure that we have the ability to practice and maintain those Rights now and into the future.”

Chief Adam explained that “Alberta is doing more of the same thing and expecting a different result.  The provincial government consistently fails to meet even our basic needs when it comes to air, land and water within the region and fails to meaningfully engage First Nations in land management decisions in accordance with our aboriginal and treaty rights.  Until Alberta makes meaningful efforts to protect land, regulate industry and ensure that First Nations are at the table as full partners to develop solutions to the serious environmental challenges that government and industry are creating, they can count on our opposition to further development within the region.”  

The ACFN depends on the environment in order to sustain their protected treaty right to hunt, fish and trap.  The government has a duty and obligation under Treaty 8 and the Constitution Act to ensure that the environment will be protected in ways that are sufficient to sustain First Nations use of the ecosystems.  The goal of Chief Adam is to ensure that the members of the ACFN have the ability to practice their treaty rights.  With the inadequate process that was used to develop LARP, it is clear that the ACFN’s voice was not heard.  The ACFN submitted numerous documents to the RAC regarding the environment, sustainability and the importance of the practice of the rights and culture to ACFN’s wellbeing.  

At a community meeting held with the GOA in Fort Chipewyan on January 18, 2011 the ACFN membership unanimously agreed that the consultation on the LARP process was unfair.  Lionel Lepine, member of the ACFN is worried about his ability to maintain his way of life and the ability to continue practicing his treaty rights.  According to Lionel, “…the LARP will be a cultural annihilation. As the land continues to be developed, where will I go to teach my children their cultural way of life?”  Leslie Cardinal another ACFN member stated that “The government of Canada formally endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in a manner that is consistent with Canada’s Constitution and laws.  The UN Declaration is clear that Indigenous people have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations.  The LARP is not consistent with the international or Canadian laws.”  According to Chief Adam, “It is obvious that the ACFN was not heard and that the government is not listening.  One thing is clear, we will be reviewing the LARP and what it means to our continued use and practice of our rights and make a decision on how to proceed due to the infringements.”

ACFN will be completing a detailed review of the draft LARP over the next 60 days and will continue their attempts to have Alberta consult them in a meaningful way on land and resource use planning and decision-making in the oil sands region.  Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation traditional lands and treaty rights extend throughout the Lower Athabasca oil sands region.  The ACFN signed Treaty 8 in 1899 at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca.  Today, the majority of members reside in Fort Chipewyan and Fort McMurray.

For more information contact:

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Chief Allan Adam, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
780-713-1220

Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com