September 5, 2008 by Jay Taber.

The logic of control, expressed in such official acts as FISA and Total Information Awareness in the US, inevitably leads to abuses of power as seen in Denver and St. Paul. Indeed, around the world — from China to New Zealand — abuse of power through technological innovation and political corruption is used 24/7 by police to prevent criticism of the corporate state. US companies have, for instance, made a bundle helping China imprison writers opposing the genocide in Tibet. British and US technology is used to fight Maori activism in New Zealand and Biafran independence from Nigeria.

As an anti-democratic breakthrough in suppressing dissent and the indigenous movement, accessing personal information and private correspondence with the help of communications companies guarantees that conscientious citizens are going to fight back, thereby justifying their arrests, detentions, and loss of human rights under the new world national security system.

When the laws and lawmakers themselves comprise a criminal enterprise, then those who oppose criminality become, by definition, outlaws. Regardless of whether participating states are nominally democratic, monarchic, or socialist, the transnational cooperation in this totalitarian regime means that the struggle for freedom is indeed global. The sharing of technology between participating governments requires tactical subversion based on a global strategy; awareness, in this sense, is indeed the ultimate sacred wonder.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

September 4, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Perhaps a harbinger of mankind’s future, the Rift Valley — where it all began for the human species — is experiencing ecocollapse. As the indigenous Maasai and others explain: no forest, no water; no water, no life. As the source of the Nile and moisture reserve for the Serengeti, Kenya’s disappearing forests are literally catastrophic.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

September 3, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Joel Gulledge of Christian Peacemaker writes about his experience as an American volunteer in the West Bank. Charged with escorting Palestinian schoolchildren who are regularly attacked by Israeli settlers residing on illegally–seized lands, Gulledge witnessed repeated lethal assaults with stones, chains and bats against children and volunteers. Hospitalized himself by settler–inflicted injuries, Gulledge says the West Bank reminds him of Jim Crow Mississippi where he grew up.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

September 2, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Contrary to the propaganda of modern states now morphed into criminal enterprises, social organization under indigenous nations was well-ordered according to natural laws. What we have now, under the transnational criminal networks posing as legitimate states, is indeed chaos. In fact, the anarchy of militarized consumerism poses the greatest threat to human survival ever experienced in our long perilous journey as a species.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

September 1, 2008 by Jay Taber.

In Defining the Enemy for the Post-Cold War World, Jason A. Edwards examines rhetorical devices used to characterize enemy agents and global chaos. As Edwards observes,

Most Americans have very little knowledge of the issues and threats that the United States faces in the international arena…Teaching reality to the American public involves telling it stories about distant countries, little known cultures, and abstract values…Using images of primitive savagery has a long history within the United States, primarily in portrayals of Native Americans.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

August 31, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Raping the earth, like raping women, is an act of violence. Violent acts, in consumer society, are often mechanical reactions to other acts of violence; brutality begets brutality.

Breaking the chain of violence in consumer society means curbing demand, and curbing demand requires exercising restraint–learning to do without the commodities that require violence to obtain.

Exiting consumerism is a bold act of independence, requiring strength of character and self-discipline. Making ourselves strong enough to resist the propaganda of advertising is key to healing the earth, our society and ourselves.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

August 28, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Watching the Witness video on Real News recently, I was struck by the images of Fourth World people suffering brutal repression by Third World militaries. As stateless nations attempting to maintain their aboriginal way of life, these indigenous peoples worldwide suffer not only police and military brutality, but also the indignity of being maligned as misfits by corporate media. As First, Second and Third World states intensify their longstanding mission to rape the resources of the Fourth World, escaping the corporate narrative is the only means by which we can make sense of things. Producing and supporting independent news is thus a matter of life and death.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

August 27, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Genocide against tribal peoples involves more than just rape and murder. The practice of ethnic cleansing, for instance, entails forced removal of aboriginal nations from the lands and resources that give them their sustenance and identity. Once removed from their lands and resources, it becomes impossible to continue their indigenous way of life, thus rendering them something other than that to which they have evolved as collective societies.

Non-tribal people worldwide, having grown accustomed to the authority of the modern states that forceably displace tribal peoples for power and profit, are not only cognitively co-opted by this systematic crime against humanity; they are also largely oblivious to indigenous peoples’ existence as alternative systems of social organization. Despite there being over 500 million people living as tribal entities around the world, their non-aggression apparently makes them invisible.

It is perhaps the most tragic of paradoxes that in order to garner attention and respect, indigenous peoples are expected by dominant societies to behave as savagely as modern states. If we continue on this trajectory of relationships with aboriginal societies, we unfortunately might reap what we have sown.

(Jay Taber — recipient of the Defender of Democracy award — is an author, columnist, and research analyst at Public Good Project.)

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

August 26, 2008 by Jay Taber.

One hears progressives promoting the melting-pot theory of social organization even today, long after that theory has been shown to undermine cultural diversity. The human dignity at the root of multiculturalism requires a respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of each unique people; while white supremacy denies different peoples equal rights as citizens, the melting-pot theory denies the human dignity of multiculturalism.

In the United States of America, we have equal rights as citizens, but we have unique rights as nations. As one country composed of many nations, our constitution recognizes these differences.

The Anti-Indian message of racist organizations like One Nation United is an attack on Native American sovereignty. The melting-pot theory of homogeneity unwittingly aids and abets that message.

(Jay Taber — recipient of the Defender of Democracy award — is an author, columnist, and research analyst at Public Good Project.)

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »

August 25, 2008 by Jay Taber.

When indigenous peoples organize to protect their rights, they are characterized by mainstream media as rebels, secessionists or guerrillas. When the settlers organize to protect their privileges, they are characterized as the opposition. The sanctity of the state — whether strategically promoted as part of a government’s psychological warfare, or merely assumed by thoughtless journalists — remains mostly unquestioned by consumers of corporate media.

The assumption of state sanctity — even in the face of spurious spectacle like the Olympics — is difficult to maintain when states like China murder minorities and imprison those who expose its inhumanity. An interesting test of the psychological sanctuary of state sanctity will come as the state of Canada — one of only four countries in the world to oppose the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — faces off against indigenous peoples in British Columbia, the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Posted in Daily | Print | No Comments »