Down on Luck

One of our key volunteers at Public Good Project is down on his luck. Disabled, unemployed, on the verge of becoming homeless. Any donations will be promptly sent his way.

Due Diligence

Among all the horrors that afflict indigenous communities worldwide, the trafficking of women and children for the business of sexual exploitation (prostitution) has to be one of the worst. While this oppression is not limited to indigenous societies, they are particularly vulnerable as their cultures collapse due to the effects of such things as colonization, neocolonization, globalization, environmental degradation and militarism.

Melissa Farley, Ph.D., a CWIS associate scholar based in San Francisco, is someone who has been doing something about this crime against humanity. Her nonprofit Prostitution Research & Education is collaborating with the Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition to document the harms (starting with colonization and today with cutbacks in urgently needed social supports) and the current needs of Native American women trafficked for the purpose of prostitution.

After years of research documenting harms perpetrated against those in prostitution with an ongoing focus on indigenous women, Farley along with many other groups is seeking accountability from Craigslist for facilitating online trafficking of women and children.

When Farley was doing research in 2006 on domestic and international trafficking in the United States, I helped put her in touch with an expert on the subject my partner Paul de Armond met through the Public Good Project network, who in turn helped make her report to the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Office a success. At the time, I was duly impressed by Dr. Farley's diligence; that has not changed over time. In 2007, a book, Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections, was published which used some of the valuable information our colleague provided her.

Coalition Against Trafficking Women (CATW) and Prostitution Research & Education (PRE) are planning a protest July 8 at the Craigslist San Francisco headquarters. For more information see this announcement.

8

8: The Mormon Proposition, coming to a theater near you.

G8

Martin Lukacs and Dru Oja Jay have compiled a useful infographic on the G8 and its infamous spawn the G20, including highlights of its debt collection agencies, the IMF and World Bank.

Whistleblowing on the Web

The Pentagon and White House are going to have their hands full trying to plug leaks of war crimes evidence. After releasing video footage of US Army massacres in Iraq, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has canceled his public appearances for security reasons.

Killing Kyoto

Bolivia believes that on an issue that affects the whole of humanity, we cannot make decisions in small unrepresentative forums, whether it is a group of 20 nations or in secret dinners behind the UN facade as we saw in Copenhagen.

--Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s chief envoy to the United Nations

Obstacle to Change

It is no secret that the United States government has been an obstacle to indigenous peoples’ direct participation in the global Climate Change treaty negotiations. A principal reason for US obstructionism has been it’s 34-year long opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Center for World Indigenous Studies, National Congress of American Indians, Indian Law Resource Center and other indigenous organizations in the US and several tribal leaders have urged the Obama administration for more than a year to change it’s position and endorse UNDRIP. The Center for World Indigenous Studies position has been that the US cannot in its domestic legislation nor in its positions internationally responsibly advance policies to mitigate and adapt to the adverse affects of climate change unless and until it fully embraces the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The US government could quickly change the dynamics and stalled mess that is now passing as climate change negotiations with an affirmative endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples this summer. Then as swiftly, the US government must begin considering implementation legislation that fulfills the promise of this important document.

--Rudolph C. Ryser, Chair, Center for World Indigenous Studies

Invisible Relations

Back in 2004, Stan Goff spoke about the unfamiliar reality and the invisible relations of our way of life. Author of the book Full Spectrum Disorder, Goff described new ways of knowing the system that demands endless war against all life, a knowing essential to a culture of resistance.

Staying on Target

Staying with the psywar theme we discussed previously, the denial by the NGOs delivering aid of Israel's claim of terrorists aboard the ships violates the precept of never repeating your enemy's talking points. Repetition sinks in, and becomes the topic.

Staying on target with the message of humanitarian aid being necessary due to genocidal actions and policies of the State of Israel is effective and consistent with widely known facts put forth by the UN, Red Cross, and respected notables like Maguire.

Public opinion can choose which narrative to believe -- Israeli propagandists, or international humanitarians -- but the humanitarians undermine themselves when they say anything defensive as a response to Tel Aviv.