Defeating the Warmongers

As our anti-war network prepares to engage our pro-war enemies, it will be useful to review the concepts of netwar, which is the application of research, education, and organizing for action in a network organizational framework. While there are many roles in netwar, there is but one purpose--to win. But defeating the warmongers, be they progressive or fascist, requires observing the same principles of psywar--something we've discussed before.

In the end, luck and persistence are likely to determine the outcome, but luck only comes to those who comprehend the science of coercion.

Blood and Politics

In The Radical Center and the Outer Limits, Paul de Armond reviews Leonard Zeskind's new book Blood and Politics. Paul also provides a bibliography of other essential reading about the intensely alienated middle America mobilized over the last half century by the hard core racialists examined by Mr. Zeskind.

Attacking the Peacemakers

As activists mobilize for Peace of the Action, corporate media and pro-war progressives will be mounting attacks on the peacemakers. Led by Cindy Sheehan (a gold star mother), Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against War, and other opponents of U.S. imperial adventures, the media will draw on psychological warfare resources at the Pentagon and elsewhere to discredit and undermine the revitalized peace movement.

Homeland Security phone-tapping, e-mail hacking, and peace group infiltration is a key part of the federal government’s repertoire in keeping democracy down. We expect no less from the current White House.

The fact that the peace movement is led by the veterans and military families betrayed by Bush and Obama makes the current conflict more challenging for the secret agencies used to spy on American citizens, but not impossible. As we saw during the Vietnam War, when they can’t take you on directly, they resort to covert ops, using devious means to destroy movement morale by influencing the perceptions of employers, landlords, families, and allies. They will do this again.

Peace of the Action

Peace of the Action
March 13-22
Washington Monument
D.C.

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Worse Than You Think

Here’s some new background on the Reverend Annett assault in Vancouver, mentioned in the earlier post Stolen Lives. While he has been vilified by church and state officials for exposing past abuses of Indian children in church-run, government residential schools, it is likely his current expose of prostitution and pedophile rings protected by Vancouver police that got him beaten recently.

For the residential school controversy chronology, see the timeline compiled by the Assembly of First Nations. To follow the official public process to resolve residential school grievances, beginning June 2010, bookmark Truth and Reconciliation Canada. For further information about violence targeting Indigenous women and children in British Columbia, readers might want to read about prostitution and racism on my associate Melissa Farley’s website.

Indigenous Report

State of the World's Indigenous Peoples, a new report by the UN, notes that the extreme poverty of indigenous peoples on all continents is directly related to their loss of lands, often taken illegally by private interests backed by state authorities. In places like Colombia and Peru, says the report, those authorities augment official violence against indigenous peoples with that of paramilitaries.

Stolen Lives

Before the documentary film Unrepentant debuted at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in 2006, few people other than Canadian Indians knew about the atrocities committed by the Canadian government and mainstream churches against Indian children in the church-run, government residential schools. Even fewer knew about the campaign of harassment waged by the Canadian government and church hierarchies against the church pastor who documented and exposed these atrocities to Canadian media.

Last fall, that pastor and a group of Canadian Indian residential school survivors bore witness to this atrocity in front of the Vatican, and plan to seek an audience with the Pope in 2010. Last week, in the runup to the planned civil disobedience by these survivors during the February Vancouver Olympics, Reverend Kevin Annett was assaulted and beaten. As Annett and his friends continue pushing for accountability by government and church authorities responsible for the deaths of 75,000 Indian children, it is not hard to imagine church and state once again colluding to cover their crimes.

In addition to demanding the return of the remains of these thousands of children buried in mass graves, the survivors are insisting that the perpetrators — past and present — of sexual abuse, including church and government officials involved in pedophile rings, be brought to trial. They are also seeking UN support for an investigation into these deaths as crimes against humanity. Something to keep in mind as the survivors interrupt the fun and games of televised sports spectacle to remind us that it wasn’t just stolen land that made the Olympics possible, but stolen lives as well.

Democratizing Power

In his clip, Arthur Manuel addresses how non-native supporters of the indigenous peoples’ movement can help prevent violence against indigenous activists, as well as promote the indigenous agenda in dominant society institutions. This strategy reflects what Joseph Dore remarked about us all being in this together.

For examples of how an indigenous political struggle made use of affinities and diaspora to bolster life-and-death initiatives, the political parties of Sinn Fein (Northern Ireland) and Walmapuwen (Southern Chile) come to mind. Independent political parties aren’t the only vehicle to democratizing power, but they are apparently an essential one in today’s world. As international indigenous governing entities develop, I suspect new infrastructure for organizing will be built that will in turn accommodate, socialize and nurture researchers, analysts and activists from all communities within a multicultural milieu.

One can never have too many friends.

The Price of Independence

One of our friends once observed that dependence limits strategies. Acutely aware of this fact, we are pleased to note that after sixteen years Public Good still accepts no corporate, government, or philanthropic support. We are unpaid volunteers. The only funding we've ever received was donated by grateful beneficiaries of our services. That's the price of independence.

Effective Moral Sanction

This Is Where We Take Our Stand -- part of the Winter Soldier Project comprising videotaped testimonies by Iraq Veterans Against the War -- looks at the reality of America's war machine. IVAW’s presence in uniform at the Democratic National Convention stunned police sent to molest war protestors. As IVAW marched in order past the riot squads to the cadence of their anti-war marching song, the police refused to arrest them. An effective act of moral sanction if I’ve ever seen one.