Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Quiet Evil Deeds FEATURED ARTICLES - Teaching Torture: Congress Quietly Keeps School of the Americas Alive, LA Weekly - Bush Signs Western Shoshone Legislation, Indian Country Today - Dancing On Graves of Missing Native Americans, Indian Country Today QUOTE OF THE DAY "The exploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting the destruction of a few millionaires but by removing the ignorance of the poor & teaching them to noncooperate with the exploiters." - - Mohandas K. Gandhi KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JULY 1915 -- US President Woodrow Wilson sends Marines to Haiti, where Haitians are in revolt against the US-backed regime. Marines take control of the government & massive repression of grass roots organizations follows. Haiti thereafter became a virtual protectorate of the U.S. under a treaty signed in September. 1965 -- President Lyndon Johnson announces that draft calls for the Vietnam conflict will be doubled. 1987 -- The Beatles sue Nike to stop the shoe company from using "Revolution" in it's sneaker ads. RHINO HERE: While the eyes of the US media move from the 9/11 Report to the Democratic Convention, & while the neo-robber baron war machine registers multiplying profits & ever rising body counts, & while the shrub enjoys another vacation on the ranch, there are quiet, barely reported evil deeds afoot in the US of A. Yes, the Rhino is keeping an ear on the Boston Democratic oratory, hoping for the kind of  heart & soul that will inspire a million or millions of new voters, but meanwhile, the reasons to get rid of the shrub gang mount. In the last few weeks, the US Congress renewed appropriations for the torture-teaching "School of the Americas", the US President signed the Western Shoshone Distribution Bill, another Indian treaty trashing land grab (24 million acres in Nevada, Utah, California & Idaho),  & as Suzan Shown Harjo (Hodulgee Muscogee), president of the Morning Star Institute & Columnist for Indian Country Today, says in today's Rhino's Bottom Line, "A bunch of white folks are dancing on the graves of missing Native Americans... federally-subsidized scientists who won a recent lawsuit and the reporters who are celebrating their victory of "science over religion" - the modern day metaphor for "cowboys and Indians." Harjo also covers the sickening irony of the fact that the 2 leading would-be presidents are both members of the ultra secret grave robbing society known as Skull & Bones. She suggests it may be time for a new memorial in D.C.;  a Tomb of the Unknown Native American. "SEND THIS ARTICLE TO A REPUBLICAN!" Teaching Torture Congress Quietly Keeps School of the Americas Alive by Doug Ireland, LA Weekly, July 23-29, 2004 Remember how congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle deplored the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib as "un-American"? Last Thursday, however, the House quietly passed a renewed appropriation that keeps open the U.S.'s most infamous torture-teaching institution, known as the School of the Americas (SOA), where the illegal physical and psychological abuse of prisoners of the kind the world condemned at Abu Ghraib and worse has been routinely taught for years. A relic of the Cold War, the SOA was originally set up to train military, police and intelligence officers of U.S. allies south of the border in the fight against insurgencies Washington labeled "Communist." In reality, the SOA's graduates have been the shock troops of political repression, propping up a string of dictatorial and repressive regimes favored by the Pentagon.:. MORE: http://www.LAWEEKLY.COM/ink/04/35/news-ireland.php Bush Signs Western Shoshone Legislation Tribal leaders views bill as massive land fraud by: Jerry Reynolds, Indian Country Today, July 09, 2004 One of the largest ongoing seizures of Indian land in modern times will move forward following President George W. Bush's signing of the Western Shoshone Distribution Bill on July 7. Under provisions of the bill, Western Shoshone claims to 24 million acres of land in Nevada, Utah, California and Idaho, based on the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863, are officially subsumed through payment by the U.S. government. The bill will forcibly distribute approximately $145 million in funds awarded the tribe by the Indian Land Claims Commission. Most of it will go to 6,000 or so eligible tribal members, with a separate revenue stream set aside for educational purposes. The commission acted on findings that following the Ruby Valley Treaty, which permitted non-Indian miners access to the tribal lands, a "gradual encroachment" took place that supposedly nullified the treaty. According to the government the "gradual encroachment" theory obviated any need for official cession of land by sovereign Western Shoshone governments, a sticking point to this day with foes of the funds distribution. The commission based its original $27 million award (enacted by its successor organization, U.S. Court of Federal Claims) on land valuation in effect in 1872 - 15 cents an acre, with no interest on the loss over time... MORE:  http://www.indiancountry.com/?1089383970 8:09:27 AM    comment

Dancing On Graves of Missing Native Americans Dancing On Graves of Missing Native Americans by: Suzan Shown Harjo, Indian Country Today, July 23, 2004 (Excerpts) A bunch of white folks are dancing on the graves of missing Native Americans these days. The bodies are stashed in laboratories and other surrogate tombs, where adults experiment on them and use them in bizarre rituals.  The first dancing white men are the federally-subsidized scientists who won a recent lawsuit and the reporters who are celebrating their victory of "science over religion" - the modern day metaphor for "cowboys and Indians" - in the case involving the Ancient One, the 9,000-year-old Native man who was found in 1996 near Kennewick, Wash. Northwest Native peoples want to rebury the Ancient One; Caucasian American scientists want to "study" him. Contorting federal Indian law and known history, the scientists convinced a handful of judges and a pack of reporters that the Ancient One is not Native American and that "study" is vital to determine whose hemisphere this is anyway.  On July 19, the Indian tribes let the time run out to appeal the racially-biased decision to the Supreme Court. The scientists are clicking their heels and sharpening their knives and scrapers, poised to exercise their duty of white privilege... ...Another set of dancing Caucasians are members of the elite Skull and Bones Society at Yale University. Skull and Bones comes to media attention any time someone named Bush runs for public office. Today it is under increased scrutiny, with an anticipated presidential election between two Bonesmen, Pres. George W. Bush (Class of '67) and Sen. John F. Kerry (Class of '65). Skull and Bones legend has it that Bush's grandfather, Sen. Prescott Bush of Connecticut, and two fellow Bonesmen dug up the body of the great Apache leader, Geronimo, in Oklahoma in 1918, and stole his head. Bonesmen from later classes posed for photographs behind a skull and two crossed leg bones. It is said that Bonesmen open their meetings and perform cultish practices with Geronimo's skull.... ...Other Caucasians dancing on empty Native graves are the bunch running the repatriation office in the National Park Service. The National Congress of American Indians is calling for the NPS to be stripped of its repatriation duties, declaring in a resolution passed in June that the NPS cannot enforce repatriation law because of conflicts of interest and suppression of vital information... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.indiancountry.com/?1090594169 "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:52:24 AM    comment

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