"Liberal democracy vs organic nationalism"

2010-12-10 by Dr Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, posted to "Southern Nationalist News Network" [http://southernnationalist.com/blog/2013/12/10/liberal-democracy-vs-organic-nationalism/]:
Since the 18th century Enlightenment, the West has made an idol of liberal democracy. It has in effect become the political default position of most Westerners, including most Americans. We accept it as ‘right’ without critical examination. In fact, I don’t think it incorrect to say that liberal democracy has become our civic religion. From it has sprung most of the cultural, social, and political issues that plague the West today: multiculturalism, tolerance, and diversity; floodtide Third World immigration; moral relativism; the feminist and homosexual agendas; the anti-Christian movement; the decline of the Church; public education; gross materialism; the ‘racism’ industry; and a hatred and distrust of the Western canon and tradition in general.
In American politics, voting majorities marshaled every two or four years have become our gods. They dictate to us how we shall live and die. Most say they wouldn’t have it any other way; that would be un-American. To be patriotic, they say, we must live with the results of majority rule, whether a general election, a Supreme Court ruling, or a Congressional vote. They will allow that we can grouse and complain about it as long as we know ourselves bound by it. Otherwise, how could we claim to be ‘good Americans’?
But a verdict is not sacrosanct just because it was reached through the democratic process.
Our classroom civics books did not tell us that majority rule only works where there is already a consensus of sorts on the fundamental issues within a particular society. For instance, in a Christian country with a high degree of racial and ethnic homogeneity, common language, institutions, and inherited culture, most matters up for a vote are superficial policy issues. They don’t tamper with the agreed-upon foundations of society.
However, in a multicultural and multiracial Empire such as ours, majority rule does tamper with the agreed-upon foundations. It is often fraught with dire and even deadly consequences for the losers, especially if the winners bear a grudge. The fifty-one percent can dispossess the other forty-nine. This is obviously not conducive to civic peace and prosperity.
But the most important question of all is this: can liberal democracy as it exists today uphold civilization? If it cannot, it must be replaced with something that can.
Projections are that the USA—and our beloved Southland—will have a White minority by 2040 or even earlier, depending on immigration policy and minority birth rates. That will mean the end of things as we know them—the end of our civilization. Our ancestors bequeathed us, their acknowledged ‘posterity,’ a society based on Christian moral principles, the English language, racial (and some degree of ethnic) homogeneity, and British legal and political institutions. All this—the foundations of our civilization–will be lost.
Perhaps Americans in regions outside the South are happy with the idea of giving way to minorities and their White leftist enablers. But if the rest of the country is determined to jump off the cliff, is the South obliged to follow along so ‘democracy’ can be upheld?
It is time that Southerners—the descendants of European, Christian peoples who settled the Southern regions of North America—make a fundamental decision to break with the Enlightenment idea of liberal democracy and to embrace the concept of Southern nationalism. Southern nationalism is nothing less than the acknowledgement that Southerners’ (see above definition) survival, well-being, and independence should be the primary considerations for the here-and-now as well as for the future. If current political arrangements do not promote our survival, well-being, and independence, then they should be cast aside for new arrangements that do promote these ends. This includes democracy in all its forms.

WHAT IS ORGANIC NATIONALISM?
What the South must embrace for its survival is organic nationalism, a form of nationalism in which the political state (the government) receives its legitimacy from the organic unity of those whom it serves. In other words, it is a true nation-state such as historic France, Germany, or England. Hallmarks of that organic unity are race/ethnicity, language, culture and folk customs, and religion. It is therefore a ‘nation’—a distinct people, a Folk—in the primal and fundamental sense. By nature it is conservative in that its main function is to conserve a society that will defend the lives, liberty, and property of the people who comprise it. Their survival, well being, and independence are paramount. Conversely, they reject the top-down universal hegemony of the elites.
What would a South that embraced organic nationalism look like? It would be a South that returned to its European roots but with plenty of leeway given for those cultural attributes that are uniquely Southern. We could listen to Beethoven as well as Hank Williams. We could read Sir Walter Scott as well as William Faulkner. It would embrace and celebrate as good and wholesome all its peculiarities without apology and without embarrassment—its literature, language and dialect, religious faith, folkways, songs, cuisine, myths, and overall worldview. It would also draw from that deep cultural well that is Europe, taking the best of that and calling it our own as well.
That the organic South is both European and extra-European should be no problem for us to accept. After all, we have been in Dixie for four hundred years, and that experience has turned various European ethnicities into a loose but cohesive unity known as ‘Southern.’ Thus we have one foot in Europe and the other in Dixie, and that makes us a distinct people, a real nation unlike any other in the world.
Unlike the South, the USA is not a ‘nation;’ rather, it is a failed leftist multicultural experiment that is morally, spiritually, and financially bankrupt. I do not believe our Founders intended it to be such, but nonetheless it has become that. And as such, it should have no appeal to true Southerners. Indeed, it should have no moral purchase on our loyalty. The USA had become the “rat” that Patrick Henry smelled all those years ago.
The USA has bound its identity to the Enlightenment idea of Liberal Democracy and all that it entails. Moreover, it has compounded the problem by willingly and wittingly committing itself to becoming a multicultural Empire in which democratic institutions are manipulated by the ruling elite for the benefit of favored groups. We Southerners are not one of those groups.
As I look at my precious children and grandchildren, I shudder to think what will happen to them and their descendants when they become the numerical political (and actual demographic) minority. Revenge—’getting even’—will be a commonplace occurrence as our Folk are attacked and robbed of life, liberty, and property with impunity in the name of Social Justice or some other fabricated universal right. Will the long-established rights of our children and grandchildren be protected by the new regnant majority who are not products of Western Christian civilization? Or will a majority of wolves vote to devour a minority of sheep? I think you know the answer.
We Southerners must embrace a new paradigm. We must think ‘outside the box’ in which our enemies have placed us. We must have a new organizing principal: organic nationalism. It is the answer for the South if we are serious about the survival, well being, and independence of the Southern people. That means the rejection of the status quo of living in a multicultural empire that sucks our lifeblood.
For our self-preservation dare we cast aside voting and the idea of the ‘consent of the governed’ for a monarchy or dictatorship? No. We must simply re-define along the lines of organic nationalism the political and social entity to which we belong—the Southern nation. In that entity, our interests and moral principles will hold sway, and we can determine who gets to be called ‘citizen’ and who exercises the right to vote and to participate in other civic matters. No more being ruled by alien, universalist elites. No more kowtowing to the interests of Massachusetts, New York, and California or those of the globalists. The Southern nation will be run by Southerners in the interest of Southerners. Will that dawning not be a glorious and blessed day?

[signed] Michael Hill, in Killen, Alabama

Indigenous Rights Delegation to Nicaragua -- March 15 - 25, 2014

Join Nicaragua Network National Co-Coordinator Katherine Hoyt and Alliance for Global Justice board chair Charlie Delaney-Megeso, a member of the Nulhegan-Coosuk tribe of the Abenaki Nation, who has represented the Nicaraguan Miskito in the United States, on this important delegation.

Write now to [nicanet@AFGJ.org] to put your name on a list to receive information and an application!
Fee: $1,150 which includes all lodging, food, translation, and all in-country travel, including the plane flight to Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas. It does not include international travel.

The delegation will include:
* Meetings in Managua with government and other representatives involved with indigenous property demarcation and titling as well as environmental preservation;
* Meeting with representatives of the indigenous of the “Pacific” side of Nicaragua;
* Plane flight to Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region;
* Meetings with governmental officials involved in indigenous land titling and the environment;
* Meetings with Miskito leaders and leaders of human rights and environmental groups; and
* Trip by land to the Bosawas, the UNESCO Biosphere Nature Reserve to observe deforestation and meet with Mayangna leaders to learn about their way of life and the problems of land invasion.

Mi’kmaq

"Mi’kmaq Blockade"

2013-10-16 from "SubMedia.tv" [http://www.submedia.tv/stimulator/2013/10/16/mikmaq_blockade/]:
Download [https://archive.org/download/MikmaqBlockade/Bloackde_Report_1_HD.mp4]

For over two weeks now, a coalition of people including local Mi’kmaq residents, and anglophone and Acadian settlers, have blockaded the road leading to an equipment compound leased to South Western Energy or SWN [http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/fr/story/cop-block-turns-road-block/19084].
SWN is a Texas based energy company, that has been attempting to conduct natural gas exploration in the area’s shale formations. It is believed that if significant deposits of gas are found, SWN would then employ the controversial extraction method of hydraulic fracturing or fracking. But since this past summer, protests, direct actions and sabotage have thwarted their work, and have turned public opinion on the side of the protesters.
Throughout the summer, police arrested dozens of people conducting non-violent civil disobedience. But since the arrival of members of the Mi’kmaq warrior society, the police have not been as keen to come near protesters.
The blockade is preventing SWN from operating thumper trucks, massive vehicles that gather seismic data to determine the location of natural gas.
During my short stay here I’ve witnessed the co-operation between natives and settlers, a partnership that has kept this blockade fully stocked and operational. Food, wood, hot coffee, tents and other supplies keep streaming all the while SWN berates the police in the media for not arresting the protesters.
In two days time, several people named in a court injuction are due to appear before a judge. In the meantime supporters keep arriving, but the warriors have also issued a callout for further support.

Wet’suet’en

"The Action Camp", 2012, 9min [http://www.submedia.tv/action-camp/]:

Download the video [http://archive.org/download/TheActionCamp/Action_Camp.mp4].
The Unis’tot’en, a clan of the Wet’suet’en Nation have built a protection camp to bock PTP, in so called British Columbia in Canada. This is the third time the Unis’tot’en have called for a convergence in their territories. This year’s camp attracted over 150 people who came from as far east as Montreal and as far south as Florida. The camp organizers opted not to tap large environmental ngo’s for material support, and instead reached out to grassroots, community based allies.


"Stopping Tar Sands in the East"
2013-09-23 message from "SubMedia.tv":

From time to time, subMedia produces videos that focus on a specific struggle. These are pro bono pieces where sometimes subMedia doesn’t even appear on the credits. So far this year subMedia has done two such projects. One (in French) for the struggle against oil fracking in the Gaspésie peninsula in Quebec, and a second one for the Justice for Deepan support group. subMedia has also been providing support to the Unist’ot’en blockade, through the creation of informational videos, and by providing workshops to members of the community so that they can produce their own media. Actually, it was the work subMedia did with the Unist’ot’en, that made us step back and evaluate the emphasis of our videos. While the global focus of projects like “it’s the end of the world…” and “END:CIV” is valuable, focusing our efforts on local and regional struggles made us realize that we need to do both.
Last week we embarked on another such project. This time the focus is Indigenous resistance to tar sands pipelines in the east of so called Kanada. The “Line 9″ and “Energy East” pipelines threaten to bring tar sands “crude” from Alberta for export through ports in the Atlantic. These pipelines will traverse through many Indigenous communities and natural areas, threatening not only the health of the land but the sovereignty of these territories and their peoples. We have teamed up with Indigenous organizer Amanda Lickers to produce a video resource. This video will focus on Indigenous resistance and seeks to build capacity in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities by providing an educational and accessible resource to build awareness across communities. Featuring stories and perspectives from land defenders in Athabasca Chipewyan, Aamjiwnaang, Six Nations of the Grand River, Kanehsatà:ke, and Elsipogtog First Nations, this video will not only educate the public on the issues being faced by pipeline construction and expansion, but will showcase Indigenous resistance and provide an anti-colonial lens for understanding environmental destruction.
So far we have raised nearly $2,000 for this effort, but need an additional $2,000 to help cover transportation, fuel and other production expenses. So if you value the work we do at subMedia and would like to support this project, please donate to this project. For $10 or more we will send you a DVD copy of the completed project.

Penan

"Malaysia tribe end protest as mega-dam floods their homes"
2013-12-03 from "AFP" newswire:
Kuala Lumpur -About 100 Malaysian tribespeople were forced to end a three-month blockade of a dam after rising waters threatened to flood their homes in Borneo, activists said Tuesday.
The state-linked Sarawak Energy company began filling the reservoir in late September, a week after some 100 Penan natives from seven villages began a protest on the only road to the remote, $1.3 billion Murum dam in Sarawak state, located in the northwest of Borneo.
"They have no choice, the water is rising fast so they have to get their belongings," Peter Kallang, chairman of the NGO Save Sarawak's Rivers Network, told AFP.
He said their homes were already being flooded before promised resettlement houses had even been completed.
Malaysian police last month arrested eight tribespeople blocking access to a dam which they say will displace them from their lands, amid increasing protests on Borneo island.
The Murum dam is one of a series of hydroelectric facilities planned by the Sarawak government as it pushes economic development in one of Malaysia's poorest states.
The Penans set up the blockade in September to demand 500,000 ringgit ($155,000) for the loss of their land, property and livelihood.
The 944-megawatt dam is expected to flood 245 square kilometres (95 square miles), and cause 1,500 Penan and 80 Kenyah natives to lose their homes.
Sarawak Energy had said relocation of affected natives was set to be completed by year-end and insisted that displaced villagers were being compensated fairly.
An initial sum of 15,000 ringgit per family was reportedly raised to 23,000, with Sarawak's chief minister Abdul Taib Mahmud calling Penan demands "outrageous".
Kallang said the protestors would continue with legal action against authorities despite being forced to abandon their blockade.
The building spree in the resource-rich state along the powerful jungle rivers has been dogged by controversy as activists allege massive corruption, while natives complain it has flooded rainforests and uprooted tens of thousands of people.
Hundreds of Malaysian tribespeople have also blockaded the construction site of the nearby Baram dam.
While Baram is expected to generate 1,200 megawatts of power, activists claim it will flood 400 square kilometres of rainforest (154 square miles) and displace 20,000 tribespeople.
Taib, who has ruled Sarawak for over three decades, has faced mounting accusations of enriching himself and cronies through a stranglehold on the state's economy, charges which he denies.


"In Borneo jungle, natives stand up against Malaysian dams"
2013-11-26 from "AFP" newswire:
Long Keseh, Malaysia - With a grimace on his sun-bronzed face, Borneo tribal chieftain Lenjau Tusau glares down a dirt road that vanishes into a rainforest mist, on alert for what he views as a mortal enemy.
Evoking their past as feared headhunters, Malaysian indigenous men and women in traditional longboats knifed down the Baram river in Sarawak state on October 23 to chase off surveyors and road-builders at the site of a proposed dam.
They now man two blockades on roads into the remote region, the latest front in a battle against a colossal plan to convert Malaysia's largest, wildest state into an industrial powerhouse.
"We will not leave. Our life is here, our culture. The land, rivers, and rocks belong to us," said Lenjau, 70, whose ear lobes droop from tribal piercing.
Occupying northern Borneo island, much of Sarawak is a jungled landscape crossed by untamed rivers.
State authorities are pushing plans to build as many as a dozen hydroelectric dams -- Sarawak already has three -- hoping that cheap electricity will lure foreign industrial investment to the underdeveloped state.
Billions of dollars in such investment have been committed, the authorities say.
"The state has not only the right, but the duty to develop the state's resources for the benefit of present and future generations," state-linked Sarawak Energy, which is spearheading the dam campaign, said in a statement to AFP.
But environmentalists believe the project threatens one of the world's last great rainforests at the heart of Borneo, an island shared by Muslim-majority Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
To members of Sarawak's mostly Christian tribes, their culture is in peril.
"We don't want the dam and will do whatever we have to do. If they bring a dam, I bring a spear," said Daniel Jalong Manok, 49, one of dozens of Kenyah, Kayan and Penan people manning the Baram blockades.
Scores of Penan, upset with relocation terms, have blocked access to the newly completed Murum Dam 120 kilometres (74 miles) away since authorities began filling it in late September. Eight were briefly arrested in early November and dozens remain defiantly in their homes, despite rising waters.

A change of mindset -
Tribes who depend on jungles and rivers for survival say Sarawak's once-rich rainforests are already rapidly disappearing due to decades of state-backed logging and expanding plantations.
Data published in the US journal Science this month showed Malaysia lost 14.4 percent of its forests from 2000-2012, the world's highest rate.
In the 1980s, the nomadic Penan were swept aside when they tried to block timber companies by seizing roads into interior regions.
But Baram residents say a new resolve has developed as a budding native activist movement has grown, spreading the anti-dam message through visits to remote areas and word of mouth. Some key activists are also using social media to project their concerns abroad.
"We trusted the government," Lenjau said in Kenyah through an interpreter.
"But there is a change of our mindset, how we view the world, the land and the rivers."
At a road blockade on a stunning ridge-top, Baram protesters rail against authorities between joyous bursts of native song and dance.
Their ultimate target is Sarawak's all-powerful chief minister for the last 32 years, Taib Mahmud.
Opponents accuse Taib, 77, and his family of illegally running indigenous people off ancestral lands and plundering Sarawak's rich resources, charges he denies.
Swiss environmental and human rights group the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) last year estimated his wealth at $15 billion, citing financial records, which would make him Malaysia's richest person.
Sarawak's first mega-dam -- the 2,400-megawatt Bakun facility, one of the world's largest -- went online in 2011 after decades of delays plagued by corruption and mismanagement.
Locals say it has destroyed the Balui River ecosystem, and many relocated villages accuse authorities of shabby treatment.
A joint statement by 80 leading Malaysian NGOs this month accused Taib of "cultural genocide" and "systematic and disastrous environmental destruction".
Bakun's capacity alone dwarfs Sarawak's current 1,000-megawatt consumption, but Sarawak Energy insists all Bakun and Murum output has been sold to prospective industrial investors.
Suggestions of massive oversupply are "ignorant or malicious", it added.
Taib's office did not respond to a request for comment.

'If we have to move, it will be the end of us'-
Indigenous activists say the Baram dam would flood an area half the size of Singapore and displace 20,000 people including villages like Tanjung Tepalit.
The Kenyah community is set in a verdant Baram valley several hours upstream from the blockades.
Dominated by a huge longhouse the size of a city block, it has a Catholic church, volleyball court and landscaped walkways. Residents fish and hunt game and tend paddy fields, oil palm, and other small-scale agriculture in surrounding forests.
But village chief James Nyurang Usang, 63, said logging has severely depleted the forest's bounty. The Baram, clear in his youth, runs brown due to logging-related erosion and fish are scarce.
Many villagers make ends meet by working for timber companies or in cities.
Nyurang, who travelled to Murum and Bakun to view conditions there, said many felt tricked and promised jobs at Bakun did not materialise.
"If we have to move, it will be the end of us," said Nyurang, whose longhouse quarters feature the mounted skin of a clouded leopard, wooden Kenyah war shields and a wide-screen TV.
"I don't know if I can hold the community together somewhere else."
Sarawak Energy insists no decision has been made on whether to build the Baram dam.
But activists say the company -- whose chairman is Taib's cousin -- has a history of misleading communities and shutting out dissenting voices, which Sarawak Energy fiercely denies.
Instead of dams, Nyurang wants government investment. His village has no electricity, school, or road access besides the logging roads along which huge trucks laden with giant trees thunder toward the coast.
Neither Sarawak Energy nor the government have indicated their next steps.
"Whatever millions they give, I don't want it. Money vanishes, land does not," said Jalong.

State Sovereignty Sentiments within the USA

The USA is a federation of 50 States and additional territories altogether composed of many nationalities, (alongside over 550 sovereign nations conglomerated into a Federal jurisdiction called the Indian Country and administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs).
Sentiments supporting state sovereignty are considered nationalist, as those with such sentiments oftentimes incorporate national separation from the USA federation and it's federal government.

"25 States Considering Sovereignty Legislation"  
2009-02-20 by Carol Forsloff [http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267681]:
I walked into the Louisiana Purchase, a gift shop, today on Front Street in Natchitoches, Louisiana to buy some fudge and learned from the manager there are 20+ states looking at sovereignty from the Union since the passage of the stimulus bill.
She had a customer who had come into her shop and announced it and gave her a website to check out. The shop manager, knowing I am a journalist, handed me a slip of paper and asked me to find out what was going on. So I did.
Perhaps the website given to me was misspelled because what I found was a list of ads and nothing having to do with secession. I did, however, find a number of other inquiries, including one on Yahoo wanting to know, as I did, about this secessionist movement.
The website on Yahoo gave the answer of where to look next.
One might think the movement started in the South, but it did not; it is New Hampshire leading the pack. Apparently for the past few days this has been on talk radio, which shows how far television has to go to catch up apparently with the old-fashioned forms of communication. But the Internet, not to be outdone, has websites devoted to the cause of sovereignty, whom right-wing talk radio uses as justification for talk about secession.. Here is one about the State of New Hampshire with Bill HCR 6. It is apparently just one of a number of states that has decided it could break away from the Federal government.
These are some of the reasons cited by some of these states and their proposed legislation:
“I. Declaring Involuntary Martial Law over any of the 50 States
II. Any kind of "domestic Draft" (Obama's Service Corps)
III. Any kind of required service of Minors (Youth Brigades)
 IV. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government. (UN Millennium Declaration, which Obama supports, North American Union/SPP agreement, UN Carbon Taxes),
V. Any act regarding religion; further limitations on freedom of political speech; or further limitations on freedom of the press. (Fairness Doctrine)
VI. Any attempt to further restrict the the Right to Bear Arms."
One website lists the States that are sovereign or are interested [http://www.mrstep.com/politics/az-wa-mo-nh-ok-claiming-sovereignty/] – Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington. States planning/motioning toward claiming sovereignty are said to include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Pennsylvania, West Virginia
Some folks are asking for people to join right now in support of the movement for state sovereignty.
In examining the list of states, it appears that many are not in the South after all, so this new secessionist movement is likely to bring a different sort of coalitions together. Suffice to say that states’ rights vs. that of the federal government, that was the debate at the time of the country’s founding, and again during the civil war, remains part of the serious discussion surrounding Obama’s proposals and the stimulus bill this week.
 This type of behavior begins whenever there is uncertainty, and likely won’t amount to much. The fact, however, that this is a time of economic uncertainty and political divisions with many legislators involved in the initiation of these bills should make the movement of particular concern.

Dolphin & Whales afflicted by morbillivirus (akin to human measles)

"Dolphin-Killing Virus Spreads South, May Be Infecting Whales Too" 
2013-11-11 by Nadia Drake [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/dolphin-killing-virus-spreads/]:
A viral outbreak that’s killing bottlenose dolphins is moving down the U.S. East Coast as the animals migrate south for the winter. Between July 1 and November 3, at least 753 animals have died. The outbreak began along the coast between New York and Virginia this summer. Now, carcasses are washing ashore in the Carolinas and Florida. Researchers have identified the cause as dolphin morbillivirus, a pathogen that’s related to human measles and canine distemper. Morbillivirus infects dolphins’ lungs and brains, causing weird behaviors and skin lesions and pneumonia (but the marine mammals can’t pass it on to humans).
In a normal year, during this same timeframe and in the same geographic area, the average number of dolphins recovered from the beaches would be 74.
So far, Virginia has been the hardest hit by the outbreak, with more than 330 dolphins retrieved from its mid-Atlantic shores. New Jersey takes the dubious honor of second place, with 131 dolphins. In the last month, the Carolinas saw their total spike to more than 120.
And last week, Florida had its first confirmed fatality. That makes marine biologist Megan Stolen nervous. She and her team at the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute respond to marine mammal strandings along miles of northern Florida coastline – and from her lab in Melbourne Beach, she’s been tracking the outbreak and its slow march south.
It’s kind of like preparing for a hurricane: You know something bad is heading your way, but you don’t when it will arrive, or where, or how bad it could be. “We don’t know if we’ll get one a week or 10 a day,” Stolen said.
The die-off has already been classified as an Unusual Mortality Event by the federal government – a designation that frees up resources and sends investigators and responders to the hardest-hit areas. It’s already exceeded the pace set by the last major morbillivirus outbreak on the East Coast, an event that lasted for 11 months, between June 1987 and May 1988, and ultimately claimed 742 dolphins.
“We are less than halfway through that time frame, and we have surpassed the number of cetacean strandings reported in the 87-88 die-off,” said Teri Rowles, the coordinator of NOAA’s Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. “There is no vaccine that is developed that can be deployed for a large, wild population of bottlenose dolphins. Or any cetacean species.”
Indeed, there’s something in the mix this time around that could be even more worrying. Other species have been showing up dead with dolphin morbillivirus in their tissues. Since July, three out of four dead humpback whales (in Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina), and a two out of three dead pygmy sperm whales (in Georgia and Massachusetts) have tested positive for the pathogen.
Dolphin morbillivirus isn’t often reported in these species. Whether the whales are dead because of a morbillivirus infection – or simply exposed to it – is still unknown.
“We don’t yet know if we do have, indeed, an outbreak of morbillivirus in those species,” Rowles said. “We know we have the presence of virus, but we’re waiting on other tests to confirm that it was causing clinical disease or death.”
Marine mammals on beaches are usually in very bad shape – that’s why trained teams of responders come to deal with them. With death rates at least 10 times higher than normal this summer, local response teams have had to call in reinforcements: Veterinarians and scientists have been coming to help from all over the country, from as far away as California and Hawaii. When the morbillivirus outbreak was peaking in Virginia in August, teams there responded to as many as 18 animals in a single day.
“It was very unreal dealing with the numbers of animals that were coming in at the peak in August,” said Mark Swingle, director of research and conservation at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center. “But we are still dealing with very high mortality levels.”
It’s not a trivial task to learn everything you can from an animal on the beach as the decomposition clock rapidly ticks. Teams process the dolphins as fast as they can, recording observations, investigating what’s inside, and taking out brains. Samples are collected, labeled, and stored quickly, filling freezers in multiple states with bags of tissues or tubes full of fluids. Some of these are sent to labs, like the one at the University of Georgia, where virologists helped determine that morbillivirus was the culprit behind the recent deaths.
In Florida, Stolen is busy getting her team ready for what could be the worst holiday season in years. For the last couple of weeks, they’ve been ordering supplies and getting protocols in order, in case they’re dealt the worst of it. It’s not the first time this year they’ve been dealt a tough hand: Since March, they’ve retrieved 74 dolphins from the Indian River Lagoon, a besieged and beautiful estuary that laps at the lab’s backyard. Unlike the die-off in the water to their east, though, the lagoon deaths remain unsolved.
Stolen doesn’t know if that event is over yet. She doesn’t know if the Atlantic Ocean will begin depositing dolphins on her other doorstep – or if those dolphins will mix with the lagoon population and infect them. But if the Atlantic outbreak does arrive, and if the dolphins in her backyard continue dying, she does know she’ll be overwhelmed with carcasses.
“We’ve done what we can do,” she said. “Now we just wait and see.”

The Great Republic of Rough & Ready

A secessionist project during 1850, no longer in operation, whose anniversary is celebrated every year.

Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce

Post Office Box 801, Rough & Ready, California 95975
(530) 797-6729
[http://www.roughandreadychamber.com/RoughandReadyChamber.com/Welcome.html]
Rough and Ready is located in Nevada County, California, just a short drive west of Grass Valley. Rough and Ready provides ideal country living, and yet we are reasonably close to metropolitan areas. Our proximity to outdoor recreational activities seems to appeal to home-based business entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals who, along with conventional working and retired families, now enjoy living in Rough and Ready.
Rough and Ready has a population of 963 souls (2010 Census) and is proud to have an alert, responsive and highly skilled Volunteer Fire Department that operates with up-to-date fire fighting and rescue equipment.
Rough and Ready’s climate has an average summer temperature in the 80’s and winter average is in the 40’s. The average annual rainfall is slightly over 52 inches.
With an approximate altitude of 1,885 feet above sea level, Rough and Ready is usually, as we like to say, “above the fog and below the snow!”
Just 63 miles from Sacramento and 140 miles from San Francisco, Rough and Ready is conveniently located only 95 miles from Reno and 65 miles from the ski areas of Truckee.



The Great Republic of Rough and Ready
[http://www.roughandreadychamber.com/RoughandReadyChamber.com/The_Great_Republic.html]:
By the late 1840s, the population of the town of Rough and Ready had exploded to over 3,000.  The town suffered the effects of general lawlessness and a growing resentment for the government having imposed a Mining Tax on all claims.  On April 7th, 1850, a mass meeting of the townfolks was called to propose seceding from the Union.  The town  reacted by shaking its collective fist at the government with all its taxes and non-existent law and order.  The Great Republic of Rough and Ready was formed that day as a free and independent republic.  In the heat of the rebellion, they elected Col. E.F. Brundage as President. The new President issued Brundage’s Manifesto, which read in part: “We...deem it necessary and prudent to withdraw from said Territory (of California) and from the United States of America to form, peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must, the Great Republic of Rough and Ready.” Along with his Secretary of State, Justice of the Peace Hans Q. Roberts, they signed a constitution similar to that of the United States.
The Great Republic of Rough and Ready lasted only three months as one of the world’s smallest nations.  On July 4th, swept by a patriotic fervor, maybe feeling a little guilty (and possibly, according to some accounts, reacting to the refusal of Nevada City and Grass Valley saloons to sell liquor to the “foreigners” from Rough and Ready) another meeting was held.  The town gave resounding consent to immediately rejoin the Union.  Old Glory went up the flagpole and the whole episode slipped into history.
Or did it? On July 28, 1851, Rough and Ready became the third town in Nevada County to establish its own post office. For about five years during World War II, however, the Rough and Ready Post Office was discontinued. When citizens reapplied for a post office, officials tried to restrict the name to either “Rough” or “Ready” but not both “Rough and Ready.” “Too long!” they said. Local citizens stood their ground, insisting the name Rough and Ready had unique historical significance. In 1948, the post office officials relented, and Rough and Ready retained it’s “and.” During the search of the old records, however, it was discovered that Rough and Ready had never been officially allowed to rejoin the Union! A letter, dated June 16, 1948, from Assistant U.S. Attorney T. Vincent Quinn, resolved the issue and Rough and Ready was welcomed back into the United States...almost a century after seceding!



"Rough and Ready Fruit Jar Pickers leave beloved palace"
2010-06-23 by Michelle Rindels [http://www.theunion.com/article/20100623/NEWS/100629917/1001&parentprofile=1053]
It's Sunday morning, and hands are raised high into the warm air in a run-down building in Rough and Ready.
A band of amateurs is leading the chorus; the audience is singing at the top of their lungs, and an errant note rings out above the rest.
It's not church. But for some residents, the Rough and Ready Fruit Jar Pickers' weekly shows are almost as powerful as an old-fashioned Southern revival.
“There's more to it than the Pickers. There's more to it than the music,” said Uhl “Red” Sagraves, who plays an instrument called a banjitar, a blend of a banjo and a guitar. “It brings people together from every walk of life.”
Sing-a-longs are a decade-old ritual for the eclectic group of more than two dozen guitarists, fiddlers, dobro and mandolin players.
But plans to demolish the 1960s-era former gasoline station they crowned “The Opry Palace” — set to be replaced with a new fire station — mean times are a-changin' for the Picker family.
This Sunday will be the group's final show in downtown Rough and Ready, and after a break for Independence Day, the band that embodies the town's scrappy spirit will reconvene at the picnic area of Western Gateway Park, at least for the summer.
“It'll never be the same unless we can find a place we can call our own,” Sagraves said.
Humble beginnings -
The Fruit Jar Pickers were born in 1999 when a couple Rough and Ready residents, bored on a Sunday, decided to play music at a secondhand store in town. As word spread, a few more joined, and the band moved out to a patio.
Before they knew it, the band had grown to more than 20 people, with more than 100 in the audience, and they co-opted a vacant gas station on the town's main drag as their palace.
Nobody remembers exactly where their name came from.
“We don't know why we're so popular, because we're really not that good,” said Sheridan Loungway, who plays the washboard as the band's sole percussionist; the man who played the bones has since passed away. “We're a bunch of ragtags.”
Singing along is highly encouraged; practice is unheard of. Most of the music is from the 1930s, '40s and '50s and includes bluegrass, country and gospel music for a genre the band dubbed “Rough and Ready bluegrass.”
“We're playing the music the old folks like to hear,” Sagraves said. “It's the only venue available to the people of the AARP age. They can come and be comfortable, there's no alcohol, and they have friends there.”
Everyone is welcome on stage ... almost.
“If they couldn't leave their ego, they wouldn't fit in,” Loungway said.
Visitors come from around the world to join the sing-a-long, members said. It's hard to resist the homespun songs, clown glasses, sombreros and silly costumes band members don during the sets.
“We feed off (the audience's) energy,” Loungway said. “They can sing their hearts out if they want.”
A new home on the range -
As the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department prepares to break ground on a long-awaited fire station funded by federal stimulus money, the Pickers are moving to other pastures.
Western Gateway Park isn't home like the dusty, chipped-paint Opry Palace they have haunted for years. The park's open-air setting doesn't have good acoustics. Musicians can't store their instruments behind roll-up garage doors.
They're hoping someone can help them find a new home in the same spunky town that brought them to life.
“It was ideal for us,” said director Everette Burkhard, “but all things must come to an end.”
To contact Staff Writer Michelle Rindels, e-mail mrindels@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4247.
KNOW & GO
Rough and Ready will celebrate Secession Day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, 27. starting with a pancake breakfast benefiting the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department. Event includes crafters and merchants, work at the blacksmith's forge and performance of the melodrama, “The Saga of Rough and Ready.”
The Fruit Jar Pickers give their last downtown performance from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in front of the Rough and Ready Opry Palace.
Rough and Ready is on Rough and Ready Highway, about 3 miles west of downtown Grass Valley.


"Rough and Ready celebrating Secession Days"
2010-06-24 [http://www.theunion.com/article/20100624/PROSPECTOR/100629856/1080&parentprofile=1055]
Residents and friends of Rough and Ready will gather once again to celebrate the 1850 secession and three month life of The Great Republic of Rough and Ready.
This year's celebration, the town's 54th annual Secession Days, will be held Sunday in downtown Rough and Ready, beginning at 8 a.m. with a pancake breakfast hosted by the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department.
At 10:30 a.m., the Rough and Ready Rascals will take to the stage for another raucous performance of the musical melodrama, The Saga of Rough and Ready. This perennial favorite covers early Rough and Ready history with humor and fun.
Throughout the morning, the locally infamous Fruit Jar Pickers will play their special blend of music and banter. This performance will be bittersweet as the group will be performing for the final time at the Picker's Palace before it is demolished in July to make room for the new Rough and Ready VFD Fire Station. Prof. Richard Gill and his Original Medicine Man Show also is set to perform and share his stories.
Throughout the celebration, visitors will be able to enjoy a display of beautifully restored classic and antique vehicles shown by members of the Gra-Neva A's.
Along with the musical entertainment, visitors can browse through the crafts and peddler's booths, enjoy food and beverages, and learn about blacksmithing from our official Rough and Ready blacksmith, who is scheduled to fire up the forge in the historic Fippin Blacksmith Shop.
Kids will enjoy free face painting and a free jump house. Guests can also take a chance on the big raffle drawing, enjoy the delicious treats of the Grange Bake Sale or stock up on genuine “Great Republic of Rough and Ready” apparel and souvenirs in the Blacksmith Shop. Secession Days promises fun for the entire family.
All proceeds benefit nonprofit Rough and Ready organizations: The Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce, Grange #795, and the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department.

KNOW & GO
WHAT: Rough and Ready Annual Secession Days Celebration
WHEN: 8 a.m. Sunday
WHERE: downtown Rough and Ready, five miles west of Grass Valley on Rough and Ready Highway
TICKETS: Free admission, free parking. Pancake breakfast, $6, $4 for children
INFORMATION: (530) 797-6729

G-D Nation

(HBIC) QUEEN DIANE HOOVER...
"CHANGING THE THINGS WE NO LONGER ACCEPT"  
FREE LARRY BERNARD HOOVER!!!! FREE JEFF FORT!!! FREE LIL BOOSIE!!! FREE EM ALL!!!

Unist'ot'en

"Unist'ot'en camp site of late night bombing"
2013-10-29 by Jerome Turner from "Smithers Interior News" [http://www.interior-news.com/breaking_news/229751661.html]:
Several visitors at the Unist'ot'en Action camp, which happened last July, answer protocol questions. The sign in the foreground was lit on fire at approximately 10:20 p.m. on Oct. 28. by unidentified arsonists (photo by Jerome Turner).

An attempt to destroy the main Unist’ot’en sign with a home-made explosive accelerant occurred last night at approximately 10:20 p.m., according to on-site residents.
The Unist’ot’en camp located around 70 kilometres south of Houston has been in place since 2010 in response to proposed pipelines such as Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and Pacific Trails’ liquid natural gas line.
Last night individuals living at the camp heard what sounded like a gunshot and they immediately took steps to make sure they were protecting themselves.
“We were in the main cabin and a soon as we heard the bang we shut off our lights, grabbed firearms, went outside and fired a warning shot,” Toghestiy (Warner Naziel) said.
Toghestiy investigated the scene on the north side of the bridge where he could see fire burning. He found a few canisters of ‘accelerant’ bound together with bright green surveyor tape and a long trail of ‘accelerant’ leading north along the road away from the bridge, which was used to reach the canisters, he said.
“When I was approaching the site I could see headlights heading away from the bridge,” Toghestiy said.
The Unist’ot’en have renewed the traditional protocol of free, prior and informed consent in regards to accessing Unist’ot’en territory for any reason.
To accomplish the protocol a soft blockade has been employed on a bridge crossing the Morice River, where every person wishing to enter Unist’ot’en land has to answer questions. One such question is: How will your visit benefit the Unist’ot’en? Failure to give satisfactory answers gives the Unist’ot’en grounds to prevent access for whatever purpose sought.
One group of young men from the Houston area have reportedly taken issue with the Unist’ot’en protocol, Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en member and resident of the camp, said.
“A group complained to the RCMP about our protocol,” Huson said, but she’s not sure if it’s the same group responsible for last night's event.
RCMP have yet to investigate the scene.
A hunter from the Tumbler Ridge area, who answered the protocol questions properly, shared that he heard a group of young men were angrily talking about the Unist’ot’en and the group claimed they were going to ‘do something about it’, Huson said.
“It may have been the people who honked at the bridge but didn’t wait for us to come ask the protocol questions,” Huson said. “I believe it’s the same group that destroyed our sign at the 44 kilometre mark.”
The Unist’ot’en are asking anyone with information about who is responsible for last nights events to please contact the Houston RCMP at 250-845-2204.

Somali

The Somali nation is administered by 4 national governments recognized by the United Nations Security Council:
* Jurisdiction of Ethiopia - Zone Five: Somali National Regional State
* UN TNC - Republic of Somalia
* Djibouti
* Republic of Kenya


However, within the jurisdiction of the UN TNC - Republic of Somalia are numerous governments acting as administrative units with jurisdictions not recognized by the UN:
* Puntland
* Republic of Somaliland
* Republic of Kenya - Jubaland
* The Islamic Courts
* in addition to administrative units who do not have a presence on the internet or world wide web!

2007-01-12 map showing the political divisions of the Somali nation (click for larger version):



The Somali nation is the majority population within the Ogaden region, which is administered by the Empire of Ethiopia...
"Real wildcatters go to Ethiopia to hunt for oil"
2013-10-25 from "UPU" newswire [http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/10/25/Real-wildcatters-go-to-Ethiopia-to-hunt-for-oil/UPI-35291382718509/]:
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Amid East Africa's oil and gas boom, the more adventurous oilmen are starting to gravitate toward the vast Ogaden desert region of Ethiopia, where drilling activity has been sparse since rebels attacked an exploration team in 2007, killing nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopians.
 Oilmen believe Ethiopia lies on the same oil-bearing strata as the massive discovery in Kenya by British-based Tullow Oil in early 2012.
 Initial estimates are that Ethiopia has oil reserves of around 2.7 billion barrels.
 That's a modest enough total in global terms, but it's a potential bonanza for an impoverished state like Ethiopia, which has been land-locked since Eritrea broke away to form an independent state on the Red Sea in 1991 after a 30-year separatist war.
 The Horn of Africa country has not produced any oil in commercial quantities since its first oil seep was reported in 1860.
 There was some exploration 1915, which continued fitfully until the 1940s without any serious finds.
 Gas was discovered in 1972, but the wars and insurgencies prevented development until the recent strikes in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique to the south.
 Tullow is currently drilling in western Ethiopia on what is considered an extension of its Kenya concessions, deemed to be part of East Africa's Tertiary Rift that also embraces Uganda and its rich Lake Albert field.
 Other companies are gearing up to follow Tullow and its partner, the Africa Oil Corp., based in Canada, into the Ogaden, a Cold War battleground that remains contested between Ethiopia and troubled neighbor Somalia.
 "Exploration in the Ogaden Basin, as well as newer activity in the Omo and Gambella basins, will continue to face challenges due to relatively remote operating environments these areas represent," Oxford Analytica observed.
 Unlike in most countries where oilmen go exploring, the government in Addis Ababa is not keen at all on promoting expectations of vast oil and gas wealth, for now anyway.
 It's downplayed reports that Tullow, a trailblazer across East Africa, has struck oil in the southwestern Omo Basin -- apparently to avoid stirring political unrest and aggravate territorial disputes, both internally and with its neighbors.
 Ethiopia's longtime strongman, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in 2012, "was famously skeptical of the benefits of hydrocarbons, a policy stance which -- rhetorically at least -- his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn has maintained," Oxford Analytics noted.
 Major oil or gas discoveries could transform the country's economy, which is totally reliant on energy imports.
 Tullow too has been circumspect about its Ogaden operations because of exaggerated expectations triggered by the major strikes elsewhere in East Africa, particularly the large gas fields found in the Indian Ocean off Tanzania and Mozambique.
 The Omo region, says James Phillips, Africa Oil vice president for business development, "is frankly the end of the Earth. It hasn't had any attention from oil and gas exploration ever."
 The Ogaden is a rough neighborhood, and has been a battleground in several conflicts, including Eritreans' war of independence against Ethiopian rule that ended in Eritrea breaking away, cutting Ethiopia off from the Red Sea.
 Between May 1998 and June 2000, the two states, among the world's poorest countries, fought a brutal but inconclusive border war in which, by conservative count, 70,000 people were killed. The disputed border remains tense.
 In early 2013, rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front -- which took up arms in 1994 and was responsible for the April 2007 massacre that eventually drove out Malaysia's Petronas -- warned Africa Oil Corp. to halt exploration.
 It warned the company not to pay "blood money" to Addis Ababa and declared "the Ogaden is a battle zone that is not safe for an oil company to operate in."
 Africa Oil went on drilling and signed a new agreement with Addis Ababa that gives it exploration rights over 35,000 square miles in the Ogaden and Omo regions.
 SouthWest Energy, an Ethiopian exploration outfit, has rights on 17,600 square miles of the Jijiga Basin on Ethiopia's eastern border with Somalia.
 It estimates that region, where the 2007 massacre occurred, holds 1.5 billion-3 billion barrels of oil.
The prospects likely extend to Eritrea, which lies at the southern end of the Red Sea. It has the geological characteristics of a major hydrocarbon bonanza, particularly offshore.


"ETHIOPIA: UN ambassador rejects idea of greater Somalia"
2002-02-12 [http://www.irinnews.org/report/30228/ethiopia-un-ambassador-rejects-idea-of-greater-somalia]:
Abdul Mejid Hussein (Photo: IRIN)

ADDIS ABABA, 12 February 2002 (IRIN) - Ethiopia's ambassador to the UN, Abdul Mejid Hussein, has rejected the possibility of a "greater Somalia", along with other senior political leaders from Ethiopia's Somali National Regional State.
"There should be no ambiguity on the issue of being Ethiopian," Ambassador Hussein, former head of the Somali People's Democratic Party (SPDP), told a press conference in Addis Ababa on Tuesday. "The vision of the new Ethiopia is one that Somalis in Ethiopia should be very clear about, and there should not be any confusion about being part of what is being called the greater Somalia."
"We are not part of a greater Somalia," he stressed. He was speaking after Somali faction leader Hussein Aideed was accused of calling for a greater Somalia. In a recent interview with IRIN, Aideed said he wanted to "bring back" Ethiopian and Kenyan Somalis, otherwise "you have a population divided who are in the same family".
Ambassador Hussein said Aideed was a guest of Ethiopia. "He is welcome of course, so long as he does not interfere in our affairs...Those who still believe that they would like to join Somalia can do so constitutionally, they can do so peacefully, we have no objection to that."
But he said the SPDP – which holds power in Ethiopia's Somali state - had "voluntarily" agreed to be part of Ethiopia, stressing that the Somali people in Ethiopia had their rights enshrined in the constitution. "So nobody has forced us, we have our own MPs who have continued to support our position, and the programme of this party is not for secession," he stated.
Hussein had been called in to an emergency meeting of the political party to help iron out "squabbling" within the SPDP. He said in-fighting had led to the "paralysis" of the party and the government in the state. The Somali National Regional State – also known as Zone Five – is one of the largest areas in Ethiopia.

"Aboriginal Hunting Practice Increases Animal Populations"

More about the traditional communities of "Australia" [link]

2013-10-23 by Rob Jordan [http://woods.stanford.edu/news-events/news/aboriginal-hunting-practice-increases-animal-populations]:
Burning approach mixing practical philosophy and knowledge leads to near doubling of lizards and improves habitat

In Australia’s Western Desert, Aboriginal hunters use a unique method that actually increases populations of the animals they hunt, according to a study co-authored by Stanford Woods Institute-affiliated researchers Rebecca and Doug Bird [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1772/20132297]. Rebecca Bird is an associate professor of anthropology, and Doug Bird is a senior research scientist.
The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, offers new insights into maintaining animal communities through ecosystem engineering and co-evolution of animals and humans. It finds that populations of monitor lizards nearly double in areas where they are heavily hunted. The hunting method – using fire to clear patches of land to improve the search for game – also creates a mosaic of regrowth that enhances habitat. Where there are no hunters, lightning fires spread over vast distances, landscapes are more homogenous and monitor lizards are more rare.
“Our results show that humans can have positive impacts on other species without the need for policies of conservation and resource management,” Rebecca Bird said. “In the case of indigenous communities, the everyday practice of subsistence might be just as effective at maintaining biodiversity as the activities of other organisms.”
Martu, the aboriginal community the Birds and their colleagues have worked with for many years, refer to their relationship with the ecosystem around them as part of "jukurr" or dreaming. This ritual, practical philosophy and body of knowledge instructs the way Martu interact with the desert environment, from hunting practices to cosmological and social organization. At its core is the concept that land must be used if life is to continue. Therefore, Martu believe the absence of hunting, not its presence, causes species to decline.
While jukurr has often been interpreted as belonging to the realm of the sacred and irrational, it appears to actually be consistent with scientific understanding, according to the study. The findings suggest that the decline in aboriginal hunting and burning in the mid-20th century, due to the persecution of aboriginal people and the loss of traditional economies, may have contributed to the extinction of many desert species that had come to depend on such practices.
The findings add to a growing appreciation of the complex role that humans play in the function of ecosystems worldwide. In environments where people have been embedded in ecosystems for millennia, including areas of the U.S., tribal burning was extensive in many types of habitat. Many Native Americans in California, for instance, believe that policies of fire suppression and the exclusion of their traditional burning practices have contributed to the current crisis in biodiversity and native species decline, particularly in the health of oak woodland communities. Incorporating indigenous knowledge and practices into contemporary land management could become important in efforts to conserve and restore healthy ecosystems and landscapes.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Demand Sovereignty for the Captive Nations of the "Indian Country"

More information about Indian Country (Captive Nations held by the USA Federal Government) [link]

"American Indian Nations demand fulfillment of the federal government's trust and treaty obligations during the US government shutdown"
* Quanah Brightman, Executive Director of United Native Americans Inc. [510-672-7187]
* Linda Orannhawk, President of United Native Americans Inc. [505-603-2908]
Video Footage of Press Conference:
Sacramento, CA -United Native Americans, in solidarity with Idle No More Global Day of Action will host a peaceful rally and press conference Monday, October 7, 2013 at the John Moss Building, Central California Agency / Bureau of Indian Affairs located at 650 Capital Mall, Sacramento, California to address the issues regarding the government shutdown and its effects on the American Indian community. The event will begin at noon and end at 2:00 PM.
We, as the Indigenous community demand that the humanitarian crisis that our people are suffering from be acknowledged and resolved immediately.
We demand that the federal government continue to honor all treaties made between the United States government and the Indigenous people of North America before the shutdown.
Many people around the globe are currently unaware of the humanitarian crisis that is affecting America's First Nations people and that it is due to the US federal government shutdown. The federal government has all but cut its aid to the American Indian community.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, was originally founded under the United States War Department on March 11, 1824. As of now, with the status of this nation's government in limbo, the BIA being deemed a nonessential government agency, thus our people's needs are not a priority.
Tribes are unfairly suffering from an ongoing pattern of neglect by the federal government. These drastic cuts harm crucial and critical services to American Indian / Alaskan Native children, students, and families; the most poverty-stricken community here on American soil.
Tribes need adequate resources to exercise their self-determination and serve as affective nations. For many tribes, a majority of tribal governmental services are financed by Federal sources. Most tribes lack the tax base and lack priority tax authority to raise revenue to deliver services.
Public Safety and Justice is funded by the BIA. The public safety problems that plaque tribal communities are a result of decades of gross under funding and negligence for tribal criminal justice systems and a century's old failure by the federal government to fulfill its public safety obligations on tribal lands. Interrupting tribal revenue flow will increase unemployment and increase poverty rates.
Many of our Indian Health Services, workers, and Health Clinics are being hit extremely hard with furloughs and many lack resources to pay for staffing and operations of our health care facilities. The last thing we want our IHS workers to do is to be concerned about getting a paycheck. The fiscal year 2013 sequester has already cut $500 million from federal programs in Indian country.
Although some tribes have implemented strategies that enhance economic development for our communities to supplement federal sources, such as lucrative Indian Gaming, that does not supplement the federal government's duty to fulfill its treaty responsibilities and continue American diplomacy and development to the American Indian / Alaskan Native tribal communities by fulfilling its treaty obligations.
We demand President Obama execute an immediate executive order to begin distributing our promised budget through the US Assisted Development USAID to continue good working relations of diplomacy and continue development to American Indian / Alaskan Native tribal communities.
If President Obama and Congress will not honor it's treaty commitment to the American Indian community, we can file sanctions with the UNSCSC and demand return of all stolen land.
Under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, we demand mandatory sanctions against the United States Government for violations of all American Indian treaties and the cuts to tribal programs undermining Indian treaty rights and obligations, which were ratified under the Constitution and considered the "supreme law of the land".

Guarani

"Alarming suicide rates among Brazil's Guarani Indians"
2013-10-09 from "AFP" newswire [terradaily.com/reports/Alarming_suicide_rates_among_Brazils_Guarani_Indians_999.html]: 
Sao Paulo - Survival International, a non-profit which champions the rights of indigenous people around the world, on Wednesday highlighted alarming suicide rates among Brazil's tiny Guarani Indian tribe.     "The tribe faces a suicide rate at least 34 times the national average due to the loss of their ancestral lands and constant attacks by gunmen," the London-based group said in a statement.     Guarani Indians, whose total population in Brazil is estimated at 46,000, have been trying to recover a small portion of their original territories, but face violent resistance from wealthy ranchers as well as soya and sugar cane plantation owners.     Survival wrote in a statement issued on the eve of issued on the eve of World Mental Health Day that, on average, at least one Guarani has committed suicide every week since the start of this century.     The group cited Brazilian health ministry data indicating that 56 Guarani Indians committed suicide last year, although it added that the actual figures are likely to be higher due to under-reporting.     "Most of the victims are between 15 and 29 years old, but the youngest recorded victim was just nine years old," Survival said.     "The Guarani are committing suicide because we have no land. We don't have space any more," Rosalino Ortiz, a Guarani tribesman, was quoted as saying.     "In the old days, we were free. Now we are no longer free."     Brazil's indigenous activists last week protested outside Congress in Brasilia against a constitutional reform that would transfer from the executive branch to legislators authority to approve and demarcate native lands and environmental conservation parks.     The Justice Ministry subsequently forwarded a legal finding to the House of Deputies, slamming the amendment.     "We believe this measure is not only ill-timed and inappropriate, but also unconstitutional," said Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo.     "The demarcation of Guarani land should have been completed many years ago, but the process has stalled," Survival said.     It urged the Brazilian government "to demarcate Guarani lands as a matter of urgency" and pressed US agribusiness giant Bunge and other such firms "to stop buying sugar cane from Guarani land."     Roughly 12 percent of Brazil's land currently is recognized as indigenous territory.     Native Indians grouped in 305 tribes represent less than 0.5 percent of the more than 200 million Brazilians.     World Mental Health Day, a United Nations-backed initiative, is held on October 10 each year to raise awareness about mental health issues worldwide.

Threats to the Gorilla Nations

2013-10-07 "Africa's most biodiverse area endangered by UK oil firm: WWF"
from "AFP" newswire:
Paris -
Environmental campaigners WWF filed a complaint on Monday against a British oil company accused of intimidating the local population and endangering wildlife in the oldest nature reserve in Africa.
The wildlife charity claims that Soco International's oil exploration activities in and around Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo put "people, animals and habitats at risk" and violate international guidelines issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in a complaint to that organisation.
"The only way for Soco to come into compliance with the OECD guidelines is for the company to end all exploration in Virunga for good," said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of conservation at WWF International.
"We urge the company to stop its activities immediately," he said.
Organisations can refer to OECD guidelines on ethical corporate behaviour as a way of piling pressure on companies or even governments.
Soco dismissed the claims as "baseless" on its website, adding it had not yet begun any operational activity and would not do so until impact studies had been completed.
Virunga is one of the world's oldest UN World Heritage sites and is the most environmentally diverse area on the African continent, home to thousands of rhinos and 200 endangered mountain gorillas.
Soco's own assessment of its exploration of the park warns of potential pollution and damage to the fragile animal habitats in Virunga.
The WWF alleges that Soco has used state security to intimidate opponents to its business and says the organisation failed to disclose the true impact of development during consultations with local villagers.
Soco's contract with the Congolese government effectively exempts it from further regulation, the WWF says, calling on the company to also consider the health and livelihoods of 50,000 local residents.
The UK is a founding member of the OECD and the organisation's guidelines have previously been used to put political pressure on the British government.
Anthony Field, a campaigner at WWF-UK, told AFP: "OECD guidelines are the most well-respected standards of good practice for businesses, and are internationally recognised by 45 countries including the UK."
OECD complaints could be "incredibly effective", Field said, giving the example of a 2009 case when mining firm Vedanta Resources was condemned by London for failing to respect the rights of an indigenous group when planning a bauxite mine in the Indian state of Orissa.
Soco said its first environmental impact studies were conducted in "close collaboration" with the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, which manages the park.

Republic of New Afrika

Republic of New Afrika (RNA) is a government for the New Africa nation [link], and has around a million or more adherents, with thousands of Citizens.

Provisional Government - Republic of New Afrika website (2014) [www.PG-RNA.org] [archive.org],  [facebook.com/PG.RepublicOfNewAfrika] [archive.today] (archived 2014-11-04).

Flag for the Republic of New Afrika (left), flag of the New Africa Nation (right)


Ministry of Defense Seal



Map published during 1972, showing the Kush District of the Republic of New Afrika, in preperation for the official RNA plebiscite for the People of the New Africa nation, which is an election for the declaration of sovereignty.



"The Black Declaration of Independence"
We, the Black People in America, in consequence of arriving at a knowledge of Ourselves as a people with dignity, long deprived of that knowledge; as a consequence of revolting with every decimal of Our collective and individual beings against the oppression that for 300 years has destroyed and broken and warped the bodies and minds and spirits of Our people in America, in consequence of Our raging desire to be free of this oppression, to destroy this oppression wherever it assaults mankind in the world, and in consequence of Our indistinguishable determination to go a different way, to build a new and better world, do hereby declare Ourselves forever free and independent of the jurisdiction of the United States of America and the obligations which that country's unilateral decision to make Our ancestors and Ourselves paper-citizens placed on Us.
We claim no rights from the United States of America other than those rights belonging to human beings anywhere in the world, and these include the right to damages, reparations due Us for the grievous injuries sustained by Our ancestors and Ourselves by reason of United States lawlessness.
Ours is a revolution against - Our oppression and that of all people in the world. And it is a revolution for a better life, a better station for mankind, a surer harmony with the forces of life in the universe. We therefore, see these as the aims of Our revolution:
----To free Black People in America from oppression;
----To support and wage the world revolution until all people everywhere are so free;
----To build a new Society that is better than what we now know and as perfect as man can make it;
----To assure all people in the New Society maximum opportunity and equal access to that maximum;
----To promote industriousness, responsibility, scholarship and service;
----To create conditions in which freedom of religion abounds and man's pursuit of god and/or the destiny, place and purpose of man in the Universe will be without hindrance;
----To build a Black independent nation where no sect or religious creed subverts or impedes the building of the New Society, the New State Government, or the achievement of the Aims of the Revolution as set forth in this Declaration;
----To end exploitation of man by man or his environment;
----To assure equality of rights for the sexes;
----To end color and class discrimination, while not abolishing salubrious diversity, and to promote self-respect and mutual respect among all people in the Society;
----To protect and promote the personal dignity and integrity of the individual, and his natural rights;
----To assure justice for all;
----To place the major means of production and trade in the trust of the state to assure the benefits of this earth and man's genius and labor to society and all its members; and
----To encourage and reward the individual for hard work and initiative and insight and devotion to the Revolution.
In mutual trust and great expectation, We the undersigned, for ourselves and for those who look to us but who are unable personally to fix their signatures hereto, do join in this solemn Declaration of Independence, and to support this Declaration and to assure the success of Our Revolution, We pledge, without reservation, ourselves, our talents, and all our worldly goods.


"Philosophy of the Republic of New Afrika"
[http://www.asetbooks.com/us/nationhood/rna/Philosophy.html]

The Republic of New Afrika believes that Black People in Amerikkka make up a nation of people, a people separate and apart from the Amerikkkan people. The RNA also believes that as a nation of people, We are entitled to all of the rights of a nation, including the right to land and self-determination. The RNA further believes that all the land in Amerikkka, upon which Black People have lived for a long time, worked and made rich as slaves, and fought to survive on is land that belongs to Us as a People. We must gain control of that land because land is the basis of independence, freedom, justice and equality. We cannot talk about self-determination without talking about land. Therefore, the RNA identified the five states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina as Black People's land. Gaining control of that land is the fundamental struggle facing Black People who presently live in the United States of America. Without land, Black Power, rights and freedom have no substance.
The RNA asserts that Black People in Amerikkka are not legally U.S. citizens. History is quite clear on this point. In 1865, the 13th Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] recognized the freedom of the New Afrikan (Black People) and left Us as an unattached political entity rightfully settled on land that was claimed by the U.S. Along with freedom, according to international law, came four choices as to what Our political destiny would be. Number one, if We wanted to, We could seek admission to citizenship in the Amerikkkan community. Number two, if We so desired and if We could afford to, We could return home to Afrika. Number three, if We so desired, We could emigrate to (re-locate in) another country where We preferred to live if that country did not object. And, number four, if We so desired, We could and had a right to set up an independent state [Nation] of Our own, and could legally do so on land claimed by the United States. We had the right to do so because We had lived here long enough, worked here long enough and fought here long enough to satisfy the requirements laid out by international law. Additionally, establishing an independent nation where We were was Our most logical choice because (1) We had experienced self-government in this land before, (2) We could not trust Our welfare and government to the people who had enslaved Us and dreadfully exploited Us, and (3) most New Afrikans [Black People] were unwilling and/or unable as a practical matter to emigrate to another land or return to Afrika. Land in this country where the ex-slave had already contributed his labor and blood, all as a result of wrongful kidnapping, wrongful transport and wrongful exploitation was the only logical and practical option left.
The RNA teaches that the passage of the 14th Amendment was, in fact, a declaration of war by whites and their government against Black People and the governments We had established during the Civil War. White military expeditions against and invasions of all the Black governments were begun, meetings and conventions of New Afrikans [Black People] were attacked and banned, and widespread white violence against Black People was approved and supported by white governments. In spite of this, Black People continued to seek self-government and land because they preferred government by Blacks rather than government by whites.
 Thus, independent land for Black People is one of three cornerstones of the Republic of New Afrika. The other two are (1) We, Black People, must internationalize Our struggle, and (2) We must defend Ourselves.


"FREE THE LAND!!" Basic Policy-Provisional Government Republic of New Afrika
archived at [http://feedthepeopletumaini.blogspot.com/2013/09/basic-policy-provisional-government.html]
The Code of Umoja / Black Constitution (RNA) [http://feedthepeopletumaini.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-code-of-umoja-black-constitution-rna.html]:
 First and foremost, the Basic Policy of the Government has not changed. Our policy as stated in the platform papers of December 1969 state:
The basic policy of the government is to establish national strength through sovereignty, effective international relations, and inherent viability. Our position is that all the land where Black people live, in what has been called "the continental U.S.," is our land, where we have lived on it traditionally, worked and developed it, and fought for it. This is the subjugated territory of the Republic of New Africa. Our basic national objective is to free this land from subjugation: to win sovereignty.
The New Africans’ claim, by rights of heritage and reparations, five states of the Deep South: Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. In this area in many counties New Afrikans/ /Blacks already constitute a numerical majority. One set of these counties lies along the Mississippi River from Memphis to the Louisiana border and constitutes a contiguous territory containing more than 15,000 square miles – a territory which We call the Kush District , almost twice as large as the state of Israel. It
 is here that the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Africa has opened its struggle for land and independence.

Guidance from Imari Obadele...
In 2004 Imari Abubakari Obadele wrote an Exploration: " The Struggle for Independence And Reparations From The United States"; One important reason that many New Afrikans still work for an independent Black state is economic: it has to do with jobs for our people and meaningful careers, the economic power to develop industry, science and world trade - to stand on our feet as a nation-state with the respect of the world – a respect now lacking."
He went on to state The Key things which We must do are these:
1. We must go into the streets and back roads, and make the following facts known to all our people.
The New Afrikan nation grew up in North America during 200 years between 1660 and 1865, and We have continued to grow as a nation. The Black nation, the New Afrikan nation, is now 300 years old.
Some of our people, like Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, and Osborne Perry Anderson, took up arms during slavery to help create a free New Afrikan nation-state here in North America. Men Like Malcolm X and women like Queen Mother Moore and Dara Abubakari, have kept alive this work. Today the international law supports us. In 1968 500 Black people met in Detroit and formed a Provisional Government for the nation. This "PG" has the job of leading the struggle to Free the Land", the five states of the deep south, and to build a powerful independent nation-state for those who want it. This work is led today by President Alvin Brown and P.C.C. Chairperson, Bro. Fahiym Ali. Provisional" is "Temporary".....before independence.)
2. Second, We must win support of all Black people for the Provisional Government. The more people use PG courts and support the independent Black foreign policy the stronger will the Provisional Government and the work for independence become.
3. Third, We must organize people to participate in a people’s vote (a plebiscite) for independence. We must run this vote ourselves, in accordance with the international law, and We must select polling places, create ballots, arrange for exact and verifiable counting of the votes and, or course, organize people to participate in all of this.
4. Finally, We must be ready to defend ourselves politically and military against those who would try to keep us from controlling the land after the vote. We must keep the will of our people strong. At the same time We must keep up pressure for support from the U.S. congress, from the United Nations and from countries all over the world. In the end, provided that We persist, the United States will have to make an honorable peace treaty with the Provisional Government. The United States will be forced to recognize the independence of our land, people, and government, the Republic of New Afrika. We will then establish peaceful and prosperous relations between our two nation-states, assuming that the United States does continue to exist. With all this, We must begin to build schools, health centers, media centers- and industry owned by the people, before independence .


THE NEW AFRIKAN CREED
Dated: 1969, With changes approved 5 May 1993

1. i believe in the spirituality, humanity and genius of Black people and in Our renewed pursuit of these values.

2. i believe in the family and the community and in the community as a family and i will work to make this concept live.

3. i believe in the community as more important than the individual.

4. i believe in constant struggle for freedom to end oppression and build a better world. i believe in collective struggle in fashioning victory in concert with my Brothers and Sisters.

5. i believe that the fundamental reason Our oppression continues is that We as a people lack the power to control Our lives.

6. i believe that the fundamental way to gain that power and end oppression is to build a sovereign Black nation.

7. i believe that all the land in America upon which We have lived for a long time, which We have worked and built upon and which We have fought to stay on, is land for Us to use as a people.

8. i believe in the Malcolm X doctrine, that We must organize upon this land and hold a plebiscite, to tell the world by vote that We are free and our land independent, and that, after the vote, We must stand ready to defend ourselves, establishing the nation beyond contradiction.

9. Therefore, i pledge to struggle without cease until We have won sovereignty. i pledge to struggle without fail until We have built a better condition than the world has yet known.

10. i will give my life if that is necessary. i will give my time, my mind, my strength and my wealth because this IS necessary.

11. i will follow my chosen leaders and help them.

12. i will love my brothers and sisters as myself.

13. i will steal nothing from a brother or sister, cheat no brother or sister, misuse no brother or sister, inform on no brother or sister and spread no gossip.

14. i will keep myself clean in body, dress and speech, knowing that i am a light set on a hill, a true representative of what We are building.

15. i will be patient and uplifting with the deaf, dumb and blind, and i will seek by word and deed to heal the Black family. To bring into the movement and into the community, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters left by the wayside.

Now freely and of my own will i will pledge this creed for the sake of freedom for my people and a better world.
On pain of disgrace and banishment if i prove false.
 For i am no longer deaf, dumb or blind.
 i am by the inspiration of Our Ancestors and the Grace of Our Creator, a New Afrikan.


"Chokwe Lumumba: New mayor, new era for Jackson, Mississippi?"
2013-08-19 by Askia Muhammad from "Final Call" newspaper [http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_100676.shtml]:
Jackson, Miss., Mayor Chokwe Lumumba delivers his inaugural address just after being sworn-in on July 1, at the Jackson Convention Complex. (A/P Wide World photos)

WASHINGTON - The seeds of an all new, progressive Black agenda committed to self-determination, self-governance, self-economic development were planted firmly in the fertile heartland of Mississippi July 1 when Jackson City Councilmember Chokwe Lumumba was inaugurated as mayor of the capital of the Magnolia state.
Mr. Lumumba’s electoral victory with 87 percent of the vote, ranks among the most important progressive political victories on a long list of important political leaders: Henry Wallace, the 33rd vice president of the U.S., from 1941-1945 who was the unsuccessful Progressive Party candidate for President in 1948; anti-war Congressional Black Caucus leaders Ron Dellums (D-Calif.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), as well as Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); along with anti-war activist turned California State Senator Tom Hayden; and of course Georgia State Senator Julian Bond.
When the mayor took office, he hit the ground running. He promised he would “get started toward our course of building Jackson and doing the things that we need to do to assure that the population of Jackson is entitled to economic and political prosperity and self–determination; and that we do things to ignite changes in Mississippi period.”
If successful, Mr. Lumumba’s ambitious plans may catapult this political veteran to legendary status like Chicago Mayor Harold Washington; Gary, Indiana Mayor Richard Hatcher who convened the historic National Black Political Convention in 1972; and D.C. Mayor Marion Barry who facilitated the historic Million Man March in 1995.
In 2014, Mayor Lumumba hopes to convene a 50th anniversary commemoration of the pivotal 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer when Civil Rights activists descended on Mississippi to help the historic voter registration battle being waged by Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, Lawrence Guyot, and others involved in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which broke the strangle-hold of segregationist “Dixiecrats” on the levers of power in Washington and among Democrats. He hopes that any victories achieved in that observance can be turned into permanent gains for Black folks in that state and throughout the country.
“What we want to do is be an inspiration to draw a bigger population from our relatives and other people who come from other parts of the country,” Mayor Lumumba told The Final Call. “And so, that gives us some opportunity. You change the numbers by changing the quality of life. If you take Atlanta, for an example, over a 10-year-period of time, from 1985 to 1995, 500,000 Black people moved to Atlanta. If we had that kind immigration into Mississippi, Mississippi would be well on its way to becoming what you and I talked about,” that is a “shining city on the hill,” a virtual “New Jerusalem.”
During his career as an attorney and as a participant, Mayor Lumumba has been steadfast and he has been successful, representing some of the most radical clients in the civil rights era, from members of the Black Liberation Army, including fugitive Assata Shakur, godmother of musician Tupac Shakur (who was also one of his clients); to Jamaican musician Buju Banton; among others.
Mr. Lumumba served as a vice president of the Republic of New Africa, which claimed the five contiguous Southern states—Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina—where a majority of the Black population resided in 1968 (and still resides today) as the home of what was to be the new “Black nation” in North America.
He is a cum laude graduate of the Wayne State Law School in Detroit, and is a founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Now, he is mayor of the capital of the state which gave the world Jefferson Finis Davis, a “stiff-necked, unbending, doctrinaire, and overbearing” former U.S. senator and secretary of war, who became president of the treasonous Confederate States of America.
The turnaround in the 150 years since the antebellum days is remarkable. Even before Mr. Lumumba was elected, Mississippi already had the largest number of Black elected officials—sheriffs, council members, mayors—of any state in the U.S.
From a political perspective, the new mayor is prepared to not simply govern the city effectively, but to also figure out “how do you bring African people and other oppressed people from a sense of powerlessness, to a sense of electoral power, and beyond that economic and social power.” His goal: transforming Mississippi from “the worst to the first,” in terms of demographic ratings of states in the U.S., statistics which put Mississippi below some Third World countries like Cuba, The Bahamas, the Philippines, and even Libya.
 “I believe that we have to change, not just Jackson, but the state of Mississippi,” the mayor said. “That’s a question of quality—quality of performance—but it’s also a case of numbers. We here in Mississippi are 40 percent of the population according to the U.S. Census. That’s what they say.” It’s as though the seeds of a “Black Nation” have already taken root in the state where Mr. Lumumba is mayor of the capital city.
“We have 18 counties on the Western part of Mississippi, starting from Tunica in the North, not far from Memphis, going all the way down the Western side of the state to the Southwest, to Wilkinson County which is the last county in the Southwest—18 contiguous counties, 17 of them are majority Black,” Mayor Lumumba said.
He refers to that area as the “Kush District.”
“Some of (the counties) are as much as 80 percent Black. So, demographically we have a solid, a non-self-governing territory. What we need to do in that area—and actually what our people have begun to do, Mississippi has more Black elected officials than any state in the United States—and if we can now give that some political content, some direction in terms of what we want to do in terms of taking these electoral victories, these economic victories and teach the message that we know from long ago, of self-determination, of self-governance, self-economic development.”
His political strategy is to work from the bottom up, rather than from the top down, engaging citizens, young and old in their own advancement. In order to stem crime and troublesome behavior among young people he said: “One of the strategies is to just take the more affirmative approach.
“Rather than going to church, and yelling and screaming about it, complaining about it, rather than bad-mouthing the youth, my plan is to engage the youth, engage the youth in programs which will bring out what to do, rather than just emphasize what not to do. In the course of talking about what to do, you can always talk about some things that you shouldn’t do. We’re going to have summer youth programs here, and in those summer youth programs they’re going to have a chance to do some manual labor, help pick up paper on the streets, but another three hours of their day is going to be spent learning skills.” Skills, he said in law offices, medical offices, even in drama and literature programs, including what he calls “African Scouts.”
“This is going to do a great deal to help change the culture. We cannot dictate culture. Culture moves on. It is not a treasure that’s buried that you just go dig up from time to time,” he said. “Culture is a live organic thing that changes. But at the same time, the direction it changes has got to be guided by us who’ve been around a while and know the direction it should go in.
“So what I’m looking for is for them to come up with positive songs, for them to come up with positive expressions and ways to dress. We had our Afros and our dashikis, and all that kind of thing, and that would be nice, but if they have some other expression of African-self-hood, that would be fine too. I think that will help address the sagging pants and things of that nature.
“I’m finally also talking about adults taking some responsibility. The young people around here are a little more respectful than they are in other parts of the country. There are still problems. You go to a basketball game you come out and people are cursing like sailors, and those are the girls.
“As adults, we listen to it sometimes and don’t say anything, but we’ve got to say something. Most people are not going to shoot you because you say something to them about cursing. You just walk up to them and say, ‘Well look. I’m an older person here. Will you give me some of your respect? Will you show me some respect?’ And the times I’ve done that, they usually comply.
“If people don’t know there is some kind of ostracism in their community against behaving that way, then they’re going to behave that way, because that’s what they call fun. But we’ve got to try to reclassify what fun really is, and then we’ve got to become involved with our young people.
“Breaking into someone’s home, those are crimes against the people. You rape somebody, you shoot somebody in the head, that’s a crime against the people and there’s no kinship between those kinds of activities, and any kind of progressive activity, or any kind of freedom struggle.”
Mayor Lumumba employed this same strategy in winning a resounding political victory despite staunch opposition from ultra-conservatives with vast amounts of money—double what the Lumumba campaign had. “What they did was to try to infiltrate the Black community with political mercenaries who were trying to sell the candidate of the White Republicans. They were unable to successfully do it,” he said.
“We did direct action, door-to-door canvassing, talking to people. We started a year in advance. Even though we didn’t have the money, we did have the enthusiasm and the human power, because we had been organizing coalitions against things which were oppressive, and organizing coalitions in favor of progressive things like youth development programs, for years. That kind of coalition that we had, served us well. People on the street knew who we were, knew what we had done. What we represented was a movement, not just an individual running for office.
“We are impressed with the need to protecting everyone’s human rights. It’s not a question of us flipping the script. Our revolution is for a better idea, not just for a different set of faces. Our predominantly Black administrations can actually do better—to provide security to everybody, prosperity to everybody on a fair basis, and, of course, we’re going to be vigilant against the cheaters—but we think we can do a better job. We’re talking about the new society, the new way, and that’s a lot of what New Africa was about.
“Those were good ideas. We’re going to do it by lifting the bottom up.” Mayor Lumumba intends to do it, paraphrasing his governing theme from a mantra popularized by the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey 100 years ago: the “new Jackson” will be, “One City. One Aim. One Destiny.”


"New mayor of Jackson, Miss., wants to create independent black nation in South"
2013-09-30 by Howard Portnoy [http://libertyunyielding.com/2013/09/30/new-mayor-of-jackson-miss-wants-to-create-independent-black-nation-in-south/]:
One might call it racial progress. Jackson, Miss., has elected its second black mayor (which is perhaps not that progressive considering that the city is 80% black). Nevertheless, the inauguration was attended by a crowd of 2,500 people and presided over by Bennie Thompson, a black representative to the U.S. Congress. The Mississippi Mass Choir was on hand to give a soul-thumping performance of the spiritual “When I Rose This Morning.”
But unlike outgoing black mayor Harvey Johnson, the new mayor has big plans for the city. They are so big that they extend to the entire state and to its neighbors to the west and east. Gateway Pundit explains [thegatewaypundit.com/2013/09/new-radical-black-mayor-of-jackson-ms-lumumba-is-a-former-leader-of-republic-of-new-afrika-dedicated-to-transforming-south-into-an-independent-socialist-black-nation/]: [begin excerpt] Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, born in Detroit as Edwin Finley Taliaferro, is a radical activist…. He’s, also, being praised by the Nation of Islam, who wrote in their publication, Final Call, that ‘the seeds of a black nation are already taking root in Mississippi.’ [end excerpt]
Lumuba — who raised his fist in a black power salute during his swearing in ceremony while calling out, “Free the land!” — is a former vice president of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA). The main goal of this black supremacy group, founded in 1968, is to transform five southern states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina) into an independent socialist black nation.
Lumumba is also a co-founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, a national group that seeks self-determination for African-Americans — whom it calls New Afrikans — “by any means necessary.”
Identifying himself as a revolutionary whose most immediate plans are to create a local “solidarity economy,” Lumumba has some Jackson business owners worried. Ben Allen, president of Downtown Jackson Partners, which is part of the city’s “small but powerful white business community,” told Al Jazeera America [america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/19/in-mississippi-americaasmostrevolutionarymayor.html]: [begin excerpt] I was absolutely scared to death of him [when he announced his candidacy for the mayoralty]. Just about everyone I know was. Because if you Google ‘Chokwe Lumumba,’ he has taken some very controversial stances on some very controversial people that he’s represented. And a zebra can’t change its stripes. [end excerpt]


"In Mississippi, America'€™s most revolutionary mayor; Mayor Chokwe Lumumba is '€˜applying a philosophy against imperialism to the practice of repairing streets'€"
2013-09-19 by Siddhartha Mitter from "Al Jazeera America" [http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/19/in-mississippi-americaasmostrevolutionarymayor.html]:
JACKSON, Miss. — On July 1, Chokwe Lumumba, an attorney with a long record of black radical activism, took office as mayor of Jackson. His inauguration took place in the gleaming convention center that sprang up four years ago in the state capital’s mostly deserted downtown.
A crowd of 2,500 packed the hall. The city councilors and other dignitaries, most of them African-American — Jackson, a city of 177,000, is 80 percent black — sat on the dais. The local congressman, Bennie Thompson, officiated. The outgoing mayor, Harvey Johnson, the city's first black mayor, wished his successor well. The Mississippi Mass Choir gave a jubilant performance of “When I Rose This Morning.”
Finally, Lumumba, 66, approached the podium, pulling the microphone up to suit his tall, lean frame. “Well,” he said, “I want to say, God is good, all the time.”
The crowd replied. “God is good, all the time!”
“I want to say hey! And hello!”
The crowd called back, “Hey! Hello!”
Then Lumumba smiled and raised his right hand halfway, just a little above the podium, briefly showing the clenched fist of a Black Power salute.
“And I want to say, free the land!”
Applause rang out, bells chimed, wooden staffs rose up and people shouted back, “Free the land!” That’s the motto of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), the movement formed in 1968 that sought to turn the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina into an independent black nation.
Jackson’s new mayor is a former vice president of the RNA and a co-founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), a national group born in 1993 that seeks self-determination for African-Americans — whom it calls New Afrikans — “by any means necessary.” Like many shaped by the Black Power era, Lumumba long shunned formal politics, until a successful run for City Council in 2009. Now, as mayor, he is seeking to apply the tenets of the black radical tradition to the duties of running a city.
“Nowadays you’ve got to call yourself a ‘change agent’ or something, or else you’ll make people scared,” Lumumba told me when I visited Jackson in August. “But I am a revolutionary.”
We met in City Hall, a handsome 1846 structure that was built by slave labor and spared destruction in the Civil War because it served as a hospital for both sides. The mayor had just come from a budget hearing before the City Council.
Lumumba was dressed in a dark suit, and his short white hair was discreetly combed over. He is a compelling speaker, prone to long answers, but with the orator’s gift for making complex ideas sound colloquial. He sprinkles his sentences with “all right, OK” and has a sharp sense of humor, which he used to biting effect on his opponents in the mayoral debates.
Raised in Detroit, he was radicalized by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1969 he began law school at Wayne State University, gave up his given name, Edwin Taliaferro, for the “free name” Chokwe Lumumba — honoring the Chokwe ethnic group of Central Africa and the Congolese revolutionary Patrice Lumumba — and joined the RNA in Jackson, leaving law school for two years to dedicate himself to the cause. After graduating, he set up a practice in Detroit and represented the former Black Panther leaders Geronimo Pratt and Assata Shakur.
Lumumba moved back to Jackson in the late 1980s, settling in middle-class Ward 2 with his wife, Nubia, a flight attendant, and their three children. (Nubia died in 2003.) He took on racially charged criminal defense cases in Mississippi, as well as out-of-town clients like the rapper Tupac Shakur. He tangled with the state bar, earning reprimands for, among other things, calling one judge a racist and saying another had the “judicial temperament of a barbarian.” He led the team that secured the 2011 release of the Scott sisters, two African-American women who had gotten life sentences in 1996 for an armed robbery that netted $11.
This background was a deterrent to some Jackson voters, particularly in the city’s small but powerful white business community when Lumumba announced his candidacy. “I was absolutely scared to death of him,” Ben Allen, the president of Downtown Jackson Partners, which represents real estate interests, told me. “Just about everyone I know was. Because if you Google ‘Chokwe Lumumba,’ he has taken some very controversial stances on some very controversial people that he’s represented. And a zebra can’t change its stripes.”
Lumumba’s volunteers got a cold welcome in the city’s mostly white, well-to-do northeast. “They slammed their door on us,” said MXGM activist Mike Walker, who helped run the door-to-door effort.
It was the Democratic runoff in May that decided the race (in overwhelmingly Democratic Jackson, the general election is a formality). Lumumba’s rival was frontrunner Jonathan Lee, a young businessman who had served as president of the Chamber of Commerce. Both had come ahead of Johnson, the incumbent who had held the office for 12 of the last 16 years, in the Democratic primary. Lee sought to portray Lumumba as out-of-touch and extreme, while Lumumba insinuated that Lee was beholden to white Republican interests. Exchanges between their supporters were equally unpleasant.
“Things got really, really ugly,” said C.J. Rhodes, the young pastor of Mount Helm Baptist Church, Jackson’s oldest black congregation. “Those last weeks of the campaign really tested friendships and loyalties.”
“There was the whole ‘Uncle Tom’ stuff, and the ‘You’re too radical’ stuff,” said Nsombi Lambright, a leader of the state NAACP who served on Lumumba’s transition team. “It surfaced some really deep-rooted issues in our community.”
Regina Quinn, an attorney who placed fourth in the primary, said she faced hostility from some of her backers after she endorsed Lumumba in the runoff. One of her campaign-event hosts vowed never to support her again.
“There are some wounds that need to be healed,” Quinn said. “It’s a small town.”
But Jackson’s small size also made it hard to successfully demonize Lumumba, who alongside his radical involvements and controversial cases was also known as a family man, youth basketball coach (he named his team the Panthers), member of the Word and Worship Church and neighbor.
“During the campaign, they raised all this hay about how he’s a radical,” said Melvin Priester Jr., a lawyer who won the election for Lumumba’s seat on the City Council and a childhood friend of the mayor’s daughter, Rukia. “Aside from wearing dashikis in the neighborhood, he was just a loving father,” Priester said. “I saw him as Mr. Lumumba from up the block.”
Besides, depicting a black activist as a radical doesn’t make sense in a place like Mississippi, said Priester. “From outside it’s easy to draw lines between the Republic of New Afrika and mainline civil rights organizations like the NAACP. But for black people in the South, there’s not so much a division, because even the most mainline, suit-and-tie-wearing activists were getting shot at.”
"People were looking at Lumumba as the radical, but they missed the fact that as an attorney and advocate, he made so many deep relationships over the years,” said Rhodes, who voted for Lee but spoke highly of both men. “He was able to speak to the mood of a number of disenchanted black working-class folk, who saw in him the one who finally comes and revolutionizes this chocolate city.”
The engine of Lumumba’s campaign was his grassroots operation, led by the same cadre of activists who ran his City Council race in 2009. For four years, these supporters have convened a quarterly People’s Assembly, a sort of town hall meeting, held in church halls and community centers around Ward 2. As councilman, Lumumba used this forum to hear constituents’ concerns and host meetings with various city department heads. Assembly regulars became natural volunteers for his mayoral race. They now intend to take the People’s Assembly citywide.
“The People’s Assembly is an independent body,” said Mattie Wilson Stoddard, its vice chair. “It was developed by the people, for the people, to enable the people.” Lumumba was the people’s candidate, Stoddard said. “But the time will come when there will be some small differences. We will hold him accountable.”
Lumumba’s core supporters espouse a program called the Jackson Plan, which the MXGM posted on its website in 2012. The plan’s aim is to “build a base of autonomous power in Jackson that can serve as a catalyst for the attainment of Black self-determination and the democratic transformation of the economy.” Many of the specifics are practical, even business-friendly — improving Jackson’s paltry recycling program; bringing hothouses and pesticide-free techniques to community gardens; building cheap, energy-efficient housing.
When I asked Lumumba how he planned to build a solidarity economy now that he is mayor, he gave a measured answer.
“You have more affluent folks who have businesses; we want to challenge them to invest in the less fortunate, to try to get people homes they can live in, to give them jobs,” he said. “Show them that they’re likely to get more city contracts, for instance, if they bring more subcontractors who they are developing and helping to expand our economic base, as opposed to the regular old suspects. We think we can do some solidarity with that too.”
Lumumba’s top challenge is Jackson’s infrastructure crisis. The roads are rutted and buckled. The water and sewer systems are beset by capacity issues, decaying pipes, and obsolete metering and billing systems. Water-main breaks and flooded streets are chronic. Poorly treated sewage spews into the Pearl River; last year the city signed a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency that binds it to a $400 million investment program to restore compliance. In January 2010, a cold snap caused 70 water breaks and the whole city had to boil water. Even in normal times, tap water often runs brown. Addressing these problems has been difficult in part because Jackson’s tax base is anemic. The population has shrunk by 12 percent since 1980, due to both white and black middle-class flight to suburban Rankin and Madison counties. Over 27 percent of city residents live in poverty.
By August, Lumumba was defending his proposed budget before the City Council. At $502 million, it represented an increase of 43 percent over the previous year, mostly due to capital expenses on infrastructure. One proposed source of funding was a large increase in water rates, by 29 percent, and sewer rates, which would more than double. “We can no longer kick the can down the road,” he told the council.
To raise funds, Lumumba has also set aside a campaign pledge. Under Johnson, the city asked the state Legislature to approve a one-cent sales-tax surcharge to go toward public works, but the plan stalled when the Republican-led Legislature demanded that a joint city-state commission control the funds. During the campaign, Lumumba opposed the commission, but as mayor he has agreed to the arrangement.
He had also objected to a $90 million contract that the outgoing administration had awarded to Siemens for water-system improvements, arguing that its costs were inflated. But it appears that he’ll likely let the contract stand.
“We’re not only worrying about Siemens; we’re worrying about the people that are going to be hired because of Siemens,” he now says.
Lumumba’s pragmatism has pleasantly surprised some skeptics. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been impressed by this guy,” said Allen, the downtown development advocate. “He’s appointed some of his biggest rivals to his economic-development advisory team. I’m one of them. He’s a good listener. We’re hopeful.”
Lumumba’s focus on infrastructure investment is consistent with the core goal that has run through his political life, beginning with the RNA: self-determination. His emphasis on local empowerment and suspicion of outside authority are representative of his leftist politics, but when applied at the level of a city government, they’re compatible with some varieties of conservative thought as well.
“Dealing with infrastructure is a protection against being robbed of one’s self-determination,” Lumumba said. “We’ve seen what’s happening in Detroit, where the whole city has been taken over by the state. We don’t want that to happen here, so we want to conquer those problems. And we’re trying to expand the base of the population and the alliance which is trying to fight for this avenue for self-determination. We aren’t trying to create more enemies.”
Lumumba appears to be making more friends than enemies. In mid-September, the City Council passed his budget, including the rate increases, by a vote of 5-2. His election has also drawn enthusiastic offers from progressive advocacy groups eager to implement their vision in Jackson. “People are sending in all this stuff,” said Lambright, from the transition team. “A human rights charter, legalization of drugs ... It’s like, slow down!”
When it comes to outside interests, Lumumba is cautious. “Our philosophy is that the people must decide,” he said. “I’m not going to turn away from that to give people who may be revolutionary in some other context an inordinate amount of authority here.” Succeed or fail, the Jackson experiment, as Lumumba sees it, will occur on Jackson’s terms.
“I think I’m going through an experience which can help the movement,” he said. “Testing our ideas, working our ideas in real situations. Applying a philosophy against imperialism to the practice of repairing streets.”


"Mayor looking for radical change in the Deep South"
2013-07-01 by Jim Dee from "Belfast Telegaph" [http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/mayor-looking-for-radical-change-in-the-deep-south-29384680.html]:
The US Supreme Court last week struck down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, raising concerns that decades of advancements in battling discrimination and racism in America's deep South might be undermined.
Meanwhile, deep in the heart of Dixie, one of the most radical black politicians ever to hold office in America was elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi in early June – a victory achieved 50 years on from the of slaying of a black civil rights activist who'd championed black voting rights in the same city.
On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers was gunned down in the driveway of his Jackson home. The killing sparked national outrage and helped spur many across America into involvement in the struggle for black civil rights. The passage of the Voting Rights Act two years after his assassination was one of the crowning achievement of the civil rights era.
The Supreme Court's decision to invalidate a provision of the law that required states with past histories of discriminatory voting practices to seek the permission of the federal government before altering their voting laws is seen as a huge blow by minority voting rights advocates.
In Jackson, Chokwe Lumumba's election wasn't a shocker, because of the fact that he was black. It's had a black mayor since 1997.
Jackson is 80% African-American.
Lumumba's election is stunning, because he is openly and avowedly radical on social and economic issues in a way seldom seen in American politics.
During the 1970s and early-1980s, he joined others in espousing the creation of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), an independent and predominantly black country in the southeastern US.
The RNA movement also called for the US government to pay several billions of dollars in reparations for slavery.
In his campaign literature and in news media interviews, Mayor Lumumba stressed that his economic program will incorporate principles of the "solidarity economy". Solidarity economy is a umbrella term used to describe a wide variety of alternative economic activities, including worker-owned co-operatives, co-operative banks, peer lending, community land trusts, participatory budgeting and fair trade.
Chokwe Lumumba defeated his opponent Jonathan Lee, an African-American and fellow Democrat, by winning a whopping 87% of the votes and he'll get a chance to start implementing some of his economic plans this month.
In these uncertain times, there are no guarantees that Lumumba's tapping of "solidarity economy" ideas will work. But, in these days when Washington seems bereft of any new ideas about how to revive the country from its economic doldrums, at least Chokwe Lumumba is willing to think and act creatively.
And, judging by the margin of his victory, it seems clear that he's not the only one hoping for radical change in Jackson, Mississippi.