Julian Real-Dancing With Stephen Colbert?!! Well, you don't think ALL I do is BLOG, do you? A Boy's Gotta Dance!

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Aída Quilcué, Orsinia Polanco, Clemencia Herrera, speak out on Indigenous Rights and Women's Political Representation in Colombia

[photograph of Orsinia Polanco is from here]

[photograph of Aída Quilcué is from here]

Below is an article on Indigenous women's struggle for leadership and representation in the country of Colombia. It touches on the efforts of three women, two pictured above, and one pictured at the end of this post.

This is my challenge: to centralise in my profeminist concerns and analysis and vision the concerns, analysis, and visions of these three women. There is a complex clustering of issues which face these woman, which motivate them to move into various forms of political leadership.

Aída Quilcué, Orsinia Polanco, Clemencia Herrera, and I all live in places where the following systems of oppression are operative and controling: sexism and misogyny; ethnic bigotry and racism; white and Western Capitalist Empire--what the Wealthy White Man has selfishly made for himself at the expense of All Other Life. Less threatening to my family are the following: environmental poisoning, land theft, national possession of land, and the hoarding of natural resources; access to clean water and health care, language barriers, regional, geographic, and class differences contributing to a lack of dominant cultural education--needed if one is to engage with the master oppressors and mobilise people across cultures; access to remote rural locations and urban centers.

All these issues and more coalesce and make "single issue" Western profeminism an additional form of gross disregard of most women's lives. My poor rural family remains isolated in a relatively small world, fearful and too ashamed to engage with much of the larger, "more educated" society. But they have access to it and do, in many ways, engage with it. They can do so to the degree they wish to do so. And yet, because of their privileges, of race, of region in the world, and by being English speakers from early childhood, they are also manipulated by mass media to think they the enemy is not capitalism, white supremacy, or male supremacy. The enemy, for them, in their view, is not globalisation and the pillaging of the planet and systemic assault against Indigenous societies that is central to it. Globalisation benefits them in a way it does not benefit Aída Quilcué, Orsinia Polanco, or Clemencia Herrera.

In these women I see struggles and actions I'm not sure my family members would make, in part because some basic needs of survival are met for my family, and no one is trying to take the land out from under their feet, as well as its "natural resources". No one is organising to take away their water, for example. My family's plumbing, electricity, food, and social services are provided by the State. They don't experience urgency to make things be different for themselves and their people. Poverty among whites in the West is and is not comparable to the poverty of non-industrialised and Indigenous rural people. Obstacles stack up when you add racist-misogyny, ethnic isolation, governmental neglect and abuse, and the blunt force of unmitigated corporate greed that takes far more from non-white countries than from white ones. Survival is less assured the more of these obstacles one faces.

No one in my family is likely to be killed because of their race or ethnicity. No one in my family will starve from lack of food, even if they occasionally go hungry. Some are functionally illiterate, have never set foot in a university, and have been largely educated by mass media. Organised rebellion against the State is unlikely as they have been told the oppressed are to blame for their woes. They are also being told that Mexicans living in Arizona is a larger problem than Monsanto patenting foods. Corporate welfare disgusts them, but they feel utterly powerless to do anything about it, and if Pres. Obama does try and regulate Wall Street, they will be told he's gone too far and may agree. Their television sets won't ever offer them a clear critique of racist patriarchal capitalism, but they have already absorbed an abstract fear of "communism", a wariness of identifying with feminism, and an unsettling sense that some people of color--not the individuals who are also part of our extended family, of course--are more dangerous to them than the group which retains the right to only be seen and treated as lucky individuals: rich white men. (Even their corporations retain this right.) Never mind that the only way the poorer members of my family has survived is by living in community, with women in the family possessing way more survival skills than the men.

This is an excerpt of the article following it.

Quilcué is a strong rights defender, particularly against the stigma against indigenous communities in the armed conflict, who many times are portrayed as guerilla. For her, it´s a personal matter. Quilcué´s husband Edwin Legarda was killed by the army in December 2008. There are only scant details of the incident, which is still under investigation, while her 12-year-old daughter was attacked but survived in May 2009.

A natural leader, Quilcué was first elected in 2007 as councilor, one of the most important positions in the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council, the first time in the organization´s 37-year history that a woman was elected to the post. She was also a high-ranking member on the Pickwe Tha Fiw Reservation in Itaibe and president of the Huila Regional Indigenous Council.

Quilcué has set a powerful example. In the communities´ annual assemblies, women members understand that leadership is one of the foremost goals, along with supporting fellow women.

This is a cross post from *here* @ Eurasia Review.


Role Of Indigenous Women In Colombia Still Limited

Sunday, May 02, 2010
By Jenny Manrique

(Latinamerica Press) -- Colombia´s indigenous women are increasingly becoming visible in local and national politics, but their role remains very limited.

Aída Quilcué Vivas, of the indigenous Nasa people from the southwestern Cauca department, received 66,800 signatures for her Social and Indigenous Movement party to run in the March 14 presidential elections, for which she was vying for one of three seats – two in the Senate and one in the Representative Chamber – allotted for indigenous candidates.

“I decided to participate in the elections because the common people support us, because they see that we take on a great responsibility for what we promise, even though we work with many difficulties and obstacles. We are the ones who became widows and childless in this war, so we have to strengthen our voices,” said Quilcué Vivas, referring to the more than 40-year armed conflict between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and the military. Indigenous communities have been particularly harmed by the fighting, often caught in the crossfire.

As of April 27, voting officials still do not know which candidate will hold the indigenous member´s seat in the Representatives´ Chamber, as blank votes, at 94 percent of all votes counted, were greater than votes for specific candidates, and there have been multiple allegations of fraud, opening up the possibility of a new election with new candidates. Marco Aníbal Avirama of the Indigenous Social Alliance and Germán Bernardo Carlosama of the Indigenous Authorities of Colombia Movement were elected to the Senate.

Quilcué says Congress is not the place to resolve the issues of indigenous communities´ – 84 peoples who speak 75 languages – because they still have scant representation. Some 3.5 percent of Colombia´s 40 million people are indigenous.

Of the 102 seats in the Senate and 166 in the Representatives´ Chamber, “we only have three, and it´s likely that hundreds of legislators are against our projects,” she said. The main issues include an end to the armed conflict, legalization of indigenous lands, environmental protection, an end to women´s discrimination and family planning for the communities.

Quilcué, a short, copper-skinned woman with long dark hair, wearing colorful clothes and cloth slippers, led the 2008 Indigenous and Popular Resistance Minga, a 60-day rights march for Colombia´s native peoples. More than 25,000 indigenous Colombians marched 500 kilometers from Santander de Quilichao in Cauca, to Bogota´s Bolívar Plaza, where they reached the presidential palace to demand security and land, and respect for their human and communal rights.

Quilcué is a strong rights defender, particularly against the stigma against indigenous communities in the armed conflict, who many times are portrayed as guerilla. For her, it´s a personal matter. Quilcué´s husband Edwin Legarda was killed by the army in December 2008. There are only scant details of the incident, which is still under investigation, while her 12-year-old daughter was attacked but survived in May 2009.

A natural leader, Quilcué was first elected in 2007 as councilor, one of the most important positions in the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council, the first time in the organization´s 37-year history that a woman was elected to the post. She was also a high-ranking member on the Pickwe Tha Fiw Reservation in Itaibe and president of the Huila Regional Indigenous Council.

Quilcué has set a powerful example. In the communities´ annual assemblies, women members understand that leadership is one of the foremost goals, along with supporting fellow women.

“Inside the ethnic groups are growing processes of different political participation that seek to end machismo itself even from inside the indigenous hierarchy,” she said proudly.

Landmark victories

Indigenous lawmaker Orsinia Polanco, of the northern Guajira department, is the leader of her Wayuu communities, a group of 23 clans on eight indigenous reserves. She says where she´s from machismo is very strong, even from the women´s side, who continue to dedicate their lives to domestic work, so it was unthinkable for her to achieve her seat in Congress.

But Wayuu men often accept women to represent them politically, socially and economically in specific roles.

“In times of war, it was the woman who went out to defend everything,” Polanco said. “It´s very different in other cultures that are more closed.”

Polanco was elected to Congress in 2006, and had the highest number of votes in the March 14 election, but the count has not been finalized by the National Electoral Council, and it is still unclear whether she will continue for another four-year term on July 20.

The woman has never forgotten her roots and continues to speak her native tongue, Wayuunaiki, in the capital.

“We have a double disadvantage compared with Western women. In addition to being women, we´re indigenous and we have a lot of illiteracy and ignorance in our communities,” she said. “We are isolated from education because we live in a rural area and we are aware that we´re living in a globalized world. We don´t reach the intellectual level of other women and that´s why our political participation is very poor.”

Polanco, who is a professor in the National University and holds a master of linguistics, has a platform that is not limited to Colombia´s indigenous population, but for those displaced by the armed conflict, and the most marginalized populations of the country, which does include native groups, many of whom she argues are on the path to “extinction” because of the threats they face from all sides.

She does, however, hope that the number of indigenous senators and representatives increases.

“On such an important stage for political control and debate, it´s not much what one person can do,” she said.

Local governance

Polanco was elected under the opposition Alternative Democratic Pole. The party has also supported another indigenous elected official, Ati Seygundiba Quinua, who since 2003 has served on the Bogota Municipal Council, where she was elected at 23 years of age five years ago, and was reelected in the 2007 local elections.

Even though Colombian law establishes an age minimum of 25 for this position, the Constitutional Court sided, in this case, with her Arhuaco community that a woman is of age after her first menstruation.

“This ruling defended the cultural values of the indigenous,” said the councilwoman, who authored a project for Bogota that monitors the implementation of an information system on gender economic and labor equality.

“The first debate [on the project] has been positive,” said Seygundiba Quinua, who studied political science.

All indigenous women interviewed recognize that while they aspire to holding positions in national politics, it´s at the local level where they can really see changes.

In the Amazonas department, which borders Brazil and Peru, home to 16 indigenous reservations of 35 ethnicities, a department-wide office allows for greater participation of native peoples in policy-making. Now, indigenous authorities can talk with the local rulers, such as governor, mayor, local representatives or town councilpeople, on their communities´ issues and potential solutions.

According to Juan Carlos Preciado, a lawyer and spokesman for the Gaia Amazonas Foundation, a local organization that seeks education programs that respect local culture, the indigenous peoples “have more interest in indigenous territorial governance than in national issues of the political parties.”

Amazonas has become an important constituency for candidates, and even though many community leaders decide to whom to give their vote, “the hopefuls today see the indigenous with more respect because ... the [indigenous] run [their] communities ... and are looking for interlocutors for their proposals.”

Clemencia Herrera, the third indigenous woman candidate in the Representatives´ Chamber, who ran under the Social Indigenous Alliance, is originally from a Huitoto community in Amazonas. She is working on a training plan for women, particularly young women, to learn about governance and land issues “so they participate in decision-making spheres.”

“In the indigenous world one grows up with this mentality that we women cannot assume responsibilities ... but this is the moment for us to start training ourselves to forge credibility,” said Herrera.

[the political poster below of Clemencia Herrera is from here]

Kahentinetha Horn on Capitalist Moral Reality

 

[photograph of Kahentinetha Horn is from here]

A cross post from Brenda @ Censored News. This comes originally from Mohawk Nation News, which you can link back to by clicking on the title just below.

Mohawk Nation News: Capitalist Moral Reality

Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, said this article is as appropriate now, in regards to the economic situation in Greece, as when it was written nine months ago.
CAPITALIST MORAL REALITY
Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com

MNN. Capitalism is based on a few rulers exploiting Indigenous land and resources and enslaving everybody. The worldwide economic melt down shows that people are resisting the capitalist system of privilege for a few.

The banksters want their cut of the economy first and an international fascist government to protect their interests.

Capitalism is breaking down when we Indigenous began objecting to he parasitism of these greedy leeches. We resisted the destruction of our environment, dissolution of social programs, jobs and our lives.

After WWII the bankers manipulated Indigenous resources. Companies pretend to own Indigenous resources which they put up as collateral on the stock exchanges, to fraudulently raise money from the public.

The US dollar became the international currency based on $35 per oz. of gold. In 1971 Nixon suspended the gold standard. The U.S dollar was treated as if it was gold. The U.S. economy has deteriorated and the paper dollar is declining in value.

The oligarchs don’t work. They steal our resources and expect others to work for them. To keep money coming in, capitalists moved companies to the third world or off-shore to exploit cheaper labor. These sweat shops are coming to the US. They need cheap labor.

The US encouraged spending on credit. The banks make money without investing a cent! The real value of a house might be $150,000. The market inflates it to $500,000. The banks, insurance and other middle men pass the property around and pocket the $350,000 difference. If the owner defaults, the loan is foreclosed and the house is seized.

Monopolies put control in the hands of a few. A company is taken over and put out of business to eliminate competition. The financiers use the profits to buy other companies. It’s short term gain for themselves and losses for the people. The taxpayers cover the losses.

Workers’ pensions and programs are being bankrupt. Monopolies want unions to accept a two-tier working condition, one for the older workers and another for the new workers. The new workers must work for less and longer without benefits or rights.

Corporate lay offs, union busting, wage cuts and reducing benefits to control the people will lead to violent political convulsions, dictatorships, rampant militarism, fascism and, maybe, war.

The old oligarchs are desperately clinging to their class privilege by obstructing viable solutions. They want to keep control of money, government, state machinery, army, police and prisons.

The world needs another level of consciousness. Resources and the environment must be preserved. We Indigenous must stop the looting of our resources. We have a rich political history that is based on a relationship with the natural world and preserving the environment. Stock up and grow gardens!

Kahentinetha MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com For more news, books, to donate and to sign up for MNN newsletters, go to category “World” on www.mohawknationnews.com

Alaska Native Women are Twice as Likely to be Raped as non-Native Alaskan women

J, survivor of sexual violence; Cindy Pennington, chair of the Alaska Native Women's Sexual Assault Committee; Winona Flying Earth, from Bridges Against Domestic Violence (BADV). © A. Nadel.

Violence against Native American and Alaska Native Women

See *here* for a report on the rape rates against Indigenous North American women, which is where the photographs above are from. With thanks to Samhita, and many thanks for all the work being done by Sarah Deer, what follows is a cross post from Feministe *here*.

Native Women in Alaska Are Twice as Likely to Experience Sexual Assault.

This is a fairly grim statistic found by the Urban Indian Health Initiative in a study released this week titled Reproductive Health of Urban American Indian and Alaska Native Women (pdf).

From the report introduction by Sarah Deer (Muscogee Creek) Assistant Professor,

Advocates for Native women may not be surprised by many of these findings, but this report confirms what many have been saying for years: Native women continue to be socially, economically, and physically marginalized by a society that doesn't prioritize and sometimes doesn't even acknowledge the realities of their lives. This report also makes crucial connections between violence and health. Violence against Native women is a public health crisis, and the urban experience has not received the same degree of attention as that on reservations and rural tribal communities.

Amnesty International found a similar statistic a few years ago which found that Native Alaskan women were 2.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted in their life. This new study further compounds this evidence and makes clear the role that violence plays in the lives of these women. Evidence this quantifiable indicates a systemic problem with lack of resources, cycles of crime, lack of legal attention or resources and lack of health services.

The study also found trends in how Native Alaskan women are using sterilization for birth control. Via the Associated Press,

Another finding that stunned researchers was the rate at which women chose sterilization -- 34 percent -- compared with whites at 20 percent. Also prevalent among young Native women between the ages of 15 and 24 was the use of the injectable long-lasting hormonal contraceptive Depo-Provera, which researchers say can cause weight gain. That's a possible health risk for American Indians and Alaska Natives, who are three times more likely to die from diabetes.

If Native Alaskan and Indigenous women are being sexually assaulted, often before the age of 15, at a rate 2 times the national average then it is an epidemic, it is a health crisis and it is an extension of systematic violence that can't be ignored.


Posted by Samhita - May 06, 2010

New Writing from Tim Wise: A White Jew Reflects on the Status-Update in Amerikkka of non-white Mexican People

 [photo of Tim Wise is from here, among other places]

If you live in the U.S. and don't know who Tim Wise is, please
"wise up". ;)    (I came up with that myself!)

Tim is the author of five important books on racism, white supremacy, and white privilege in the U.S. Here's what Author and Prof. Michael Eric Dyson says about Tim:

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called, "One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation," by best-selling author and professor Michael Eric Dyson, of Georgetown University.

The context of Tim's newest writing is the white supremacist Arizona governor's new racist law. This "immigration" law more deeply marginalises, targets, stigmatises, and criminalises one particular national, regional, and ethnic group, deemed a race. The unconstitutional law also more effectively decriminalises U.S. police racism and racist use of force, bolstered by State institutions, as white supremacy always has been in this country. Below this excerpt are links to the rest of this essay and other information about the author-activist. Thank you, Tim, for taking on white power as effectively and passionately as you do. If only all privileged people had this level of desire for justice.

On Illegal People...and Forgetful Ones: Reflections on Race, Nation and Immigration

by Tim Wise

May 3, 2010 [An excerpt]

You know the question. It sounds like this, voiced in the mouths of folks who wish so badly to stem the flow of those they call illegal aliens:

"What part of illegal do you not understand?"

As it turns out, I understand every part of it. I understand it all too well. Its meaning is inscribed on the cell memory of my ancestral line, burned into our familial DNA. For it is the label that was, for a while, placed upon my great grandfather. Not because of anything he had done, but merely because he had been born in a place that, in the eyes of those filled with hatred, rendered him suspect. After all, McKinley was killed by an anarchist whose parents were from modern-day Belarus, and so naturally, it made sense to treat a boat full of Minskers as though they were criminals. Just like today, the killing of a rancher near the border, supposedly at the hands of a Mexican drug smuggler, means that Arizona must crack down on other Mexicans, or anyone who might be a Mexican, in the country without permission.

What I understand is that racists are not very original. The targets change, but the game remains the same: it is forever and always about stopping the dangerous and "polluting" other. It is about the dominant group telling some group with less power that they are not as good, not as clean, not as moral, not as wanted, not as human in some way. It is about oppressing others in the name of protecting the self, failing to realize in what can only be considered one of the saddest spectacles of modern history, that in the end, the oppressor neither fully cows their target nor obtains the security they sought. Indeed they undermine it, along with any remaining pretensions to the national greatness that made the so-called "other" want to join them in the first place. The degree to which it is ironic is only exceeded by that to which it is pathetic.

[For the whole essay, please visit Tim's blog @ Red Room, *here*. To learn more about his activist work, please visit Tim's web page timwise.com.]

To Celebrate Cinco de Mayo: Fuck the Plutocrats (Pssst: Mostly Wealthy White Het Men) and Read This on the Degrowth Movement.

 [image of Cinco de Mayo celebration 2009 ECD is from here]

In case you didn't get the memo, the U.S. is fucking over Mexico's economy, communities, and people in many ways. It funnels munitions to Juarez, allowing more women to be raped, and more men and women to be killed. The latest is the racist law in Arizona, impacting Mexican people coming home to land that was once theirs and the other Indigenous people from the Southwest. So, as a North American, I'm cross-posting this, about an effort to stop the violence against people of color, in Mexico and beyond, by considering economies that practice degrowth. You can link back to the source website reporting on news from "British Columbia" (get the genocidal, imperialistic references?), The Tyee, *here*.

The Degrowth Movement Is Growing

More than 300 people gathered in Vancouver to envision a healthy society without an expanding economy.

By Derrick O'Keefe, Today, TheTyee.ca

A notion of sustainability catching on globally.

As rain splattered the windows of a small studio on the edge of Vancouver's port last Sunday, a cluster of people listened to Rex Weyler describe the early days of Greenpeace, the global green organization he and a handful of others launched in this city 40 years ago.

Weyler regaled his listeners with the tale of the daring voyage to Amchitka, Alaska, in September 1971 that led to the halt of U.S. nuclear testing at the site. This day, however, Weyler was more interested in talking about the future than the past. The veteran of green activism was among more than 300 citizens who attended the Vancouver DeGrowth Conference, meant to examine "what a viable economic, social and ecological system will look like."

With runaway global warming looming, a mass extinction underway and untold tonnes of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico every hour, they came together to challenge the logic of growth economics embedded in the DNA of capitalism.

Degrowth's many voices
With this conference, Vancouver is again out in front of an emerging movement in North America. Organizer Conrad Schmidt explained that the weekend-long gathering at One Two One Studio and the W2 Media Arts Centre, was the first of its kind on the continent. But degrowth is not really a new idea, nor are its meaning and implications uncontested.

The Club of Rome famously warned of The Limits of Growth in 1972, and it is a theme that has been present in the environmental movement over the decades. Related ideas have been popularized by the University of British Columbia's William Rees, creator of the "ecological footprint" and other like-minded ecologists and economists, and reflected in studies like "Prosperity Without Growth: The Transition to a Sustainable Economy" recently published by the UK's Sustainable Development Commission.

A rich tradition of thought links anti-capitalist ideas with ecology, from Murray Bookchin's social ecology to the more recent eco-socialism of Joel Kovel. University of Victoria professor of environmental law Michael M'Gonigle, another early key member of Greenpeace, has written in The Tyee about the need to "power down." And York University environmental studies professor Peter Victor has made waves in public policy circles with his book Managing without Growth. In a paper modeling a no-growth Canada, Victor argues that "economic growth in developed countries is neither necessary nor sufficient for meeting specific policy objectives such as full employment, no poverty and protection of the environment."

Other schools of thought intersect with ideas of degrowth, as well, from "primitivists" who advocate the tearing down of civilization in toto to neo-Malthusians who always seem keenest to limit the reproduction of those who do the least damage to the environment, the world's poor.

From Paris to Cochabamba
In 2008, Paris played host to the Economic De-Growth For Ecological Sustainability And Social Equity Conference, which defined degrowth as "a voluntary transition towards a just, participatory, and ecologically sustainable society." A follow-up conference was held in Barcelona this year, and the Vancouver organizers are consciously following in these footsteps.

I first heard of the term 'degrowth' when I met up with French journalist Herve Kempf in the summer of 2007. France is a country where you can still find the odd iconoclast and dissident in the pages of its mainstream press, and that's why I met Kempf at the Paris offices of Le Monde, where he has written for over a decade about the world's ecological crisis. The solution, as he explained it to me, is as straightforward as it is daunting: humanity must "consume less and share better".

What this means is spelled out in Kempf's unsubtly titled How the Rich are Destroying the Earth: "Growth has become the great taboo, the blind spot of contemporary thought. Why? Because the pursuit of material growth is the oligarchy's only means of getting societies to accept extreme inequalities without questioning them. In effect, growth creates a surplus of apparent wealth that allows the system to be lubricated without modifying its structure".

Kempf, like many in the degrowth camp, puts a premium on social and economic equality. So he insists that while conspicuous consumption by the super rich must be reduced rapidly, the poor actually need to consume more to meet their basic needs. A just and sustainable leveling will also mean a reduction of consumption for the world’s middle class but, according to Kempf, this need not mean a decrease in quality of life. On the contrary, human development and wellness need to be measured differently, and a different philosophy of life encouraged.

When I told Kempf that his ideas reminded me of those advocated by Bolivian President Evo Morales, he replied that he was "honoured" by the comparison. Likening world politics to a soccer match, Kempf said that "Bolivia has the ball right now."

Morales is a head of state unlike any other who emerged from his country's powerful social and indigenous movements. Re-elected overwhelmingly in December, Morales is one of a number of leaders pushing for a "socialism of the 21st century"; he has led the refounding of Bolivia as a plurinational state that guarantees the rights of its indigenous majority.

Last month, Bolivia became a global beacon for climate justice advocates and environmentalists, convening 30,000 activists to a 'People's Summit' to fight climate change. In opening the summit, Morales put the issue in stark terms: "Either capitalism dies or Mother Earth dies." Morales and other Bolivian leaders insist on the need for a new model of development that prioritizes vivir bien, living well, rather than focusing on the accumulation of material wealth and consumption.


'The elephant in the room'
Claudia Medina is a filmmaker and social activist from Powell River, B.C. She was at the Vancouver conference to screen clips from her forthcoming film Life After Growth: Economics for Everyone, which she is co-directing with Leah Temper of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Having participated in the global justice movement that emerged around neo-liberal trade and investment deals and, more recently, lived in Europe and met degrowth activists in France and Spain, Medina has, for years, been eager to take on the shibboleth of unlimited growth. She also finds hope in the recent climate summit in Bolivia.

"I was happy to hear Evo Morales pinpoint the economic issue," Medina says. "The elephant in the room is an economic system based on the absurdity of unlimited economic growth."

Matt Hern, a local activist and writer, was facilitating one of the conference sessions at One Two One. After a lively if somewhat unwieldy discussion -- the relevance of the long-departed Technocracy movement was debated -- Hern concludes with the class question, "When we speak about degrowth, we're really talking about redistribution. . . we're really talking about who gets degrowthed."

Getting 'back to basics, back to the grassroots'
As history teaches, the effort to degrowth the rich and powerful will be long and arduous. And, as Weyler acknowledges, in an era of "greenwashing", it won't always be easy to predict who will end up on which side of the barricades, "Some well-established environmental groups have cut deals that are not in the interest of the ecology, or of the people."

It is plain to see that Weyler still has the passion required to inspire people to take action. He remains optimistic despite the challenges, "Back to basics, back to the grassroots. Private citizens can stand up and make the change we need. The people are going to rise up."

With the enthusiasm of a neophyte activist, Weyler brought the DeGrowth Conference to an end with an announcement that plans are in the works for a flotilla in the fall to express public concern about the fact that crude oil is being shipped through Vancouver Harbour.. A clipboard with a sign-up sheet was passed around for those who wanted to be involved in this direct action. Everyone wrote down their contact information. Then they were off to bike home through a pounding Vancouver rain.

And so -- from France, to Bolivia and to its humble early steps in North America -- the degrowth movement is growing.

Aliou Niasse, an immigrant Muslim man, was in New York City and did what? [Fill in what comes to mind.] Answer: Saved lives.

This is a cross post. It was written by Zaid Jilani @ Think Progress. You can click on title just below to link back. WARNING: In this post Zaid includes some typically virulently racist/anti-Muslim comments.

Media Ignore The Fact That Man Who Alerted Police To Failed Times Square Bombing Is A Muslim Immigrant

The chief suspect in the case of the failed Times Square car bombing is Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, who has confessed to the plot. Much of the media has latched onto Shahzad’s Muslim faith and his Pakistani identity, making inflammatory remarks and suggestions about Muslims and Pakistanis:

– CNN contributor and Redstate.com blogger Erick Erickson complained that the words “muslim” and “Islam” are “not mentioned” enough in stories about Shahzad. He wrote, “It really is pathetic that you’re more likely to see the words “racist” and “Republican” together in the newspaper these days than “terrorism” and “Islam.” [5/4/2010]

– Hate radio host Neal Boortz tweeted, “OMG! The Times Square Bomber is a Muslim! Shocker! Who would have believed it?” [5/4/2010]

– The cover of today’s Washington Post-published Express features a black-and-white photo of Shahzad with the sensationalist headline “MADE IN PAKISTAN” [5/5/2010]

Yet one fact being ignored in the American media’s sensationalist narrative about the failed bombing is that the man who was responsible for police finding the bomb was Muslim. The UK’s Times Online reports that Aliou Niasse, a Senagalese Muslim immigrant who works as a photograph vendor on Times Square, was the first to bring the smoking car to the police’s attention:

Aliou Niasse, a street vendor selling framed photographs of New York, said that he was the first to spot the car containing the bomb, which pulled up right in front of his cart on the corner of 45th street and Broadway next to the Marriott hotel.

“I didn’t see the car pull up or notice the driver because I was busy with customers. But when I looked up I saw that smoke appeared to be coming from the car. This would have been around 6.30pm.”

“I thought I should call 911, but my English is not very good and I had no credit left on my phone, so I walked over to Lance, who has the T-shirt stall next to mine, and told him. He said we shouldn’t call 911. Immediately he alerted a police officer near by,” said Mr Niasse, who is originally from Senegal and who has been a vendor in Times Square for about eight years.

As the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights notes, “South Asian, and Muslim communities may yield useful information to those fighting terrorism. Arabs and Arab Americans also offer the government an important source of Arabic speakers and translators. The singling out of Arabs, South Asians, Muslims, and Sikhs for investigation regardless of whether any credible evidence links them to terrorism will simply alienate these individuals and compromise the anti-terrorism effort.”

Reflecting on Niasse’s good samaritanism Muslim-American author Sumbul Ali-Karamali writes, “It’s somewhat consoling to know that the man who first noticed the smoking Nissan Pathfinder and sought help is also Muslim, a Senegalese immigrant. … I grew up Muslim in this country, with Muslim friends and non-Muslim friends, and there was very little difference between the two groups. We were all American.”