For the next few weeks I will be in Mexico visiting the west coast and living in the hot weather.  This is a stark contrast, weather wise, from my home in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

The temperature is about 89 throughout the day contrasted with 58 in the Northwest.

I will have more to say about my stay in Mexico tomorrow.

Mexico, weather

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Politics in any country is a rough and tumble business. In the ideal politics is a process of persuasion where individuals called political leaders have the duty to inform the population, to educate the population with the facts in an effort to persuade people to form a common opinion on a topic. The emergence of tough and complex issues like energy and environmental policies aimed at dealing with the adverse affects of climate change, and health reform challenge politicians and the population to engage politics in the ideal sense or to engage in bully mob rule.  The Republican Party in the United States has chosen to engage the tough issues of the day with bully mob rule.

In the presidential election year of 2000 the Republican Party chose to use bully mob rule to intimidate people to oppose efforts carefully recount votes to determine who won the state of Florida. Organized “hooligans” threatened, shouted, and otherwise forced their views to disrupt the recount process. Fear seems to drive the Republican party and its leaders to act hysterically and to threaten and intimidate voters. Reminiscent of fascist and Bolshevik tactics in the 1920s and 1930s, the Republican party seems to have lost its way … giving up on the political process of persuasion.

With the developing debate about health reform in the US, Insurance company and pharmaceutical company supported Republican party activists began in August during the Congressional recess to use town hall meetings with congressmen as venues to engage in “hooliganism,” bully mob intimidation of public officials and ordinary citizens.  This is a corruption of the political system.  This is not politics.  This is not a policy debate.  This is a form of political violence that corrupts democracy.

Republican organized bully mobs in town hall meetings is not politics. This is a betrayal of the political process that denies American citizens the benefits of their own governing process. Republican destructive political behavior must be rejected by the public.  If it isn’t then hooliganism will become increasingly used to force political change favorable to a few corporate interests or other narrow interests upending democracy in the United States.

republic party, political violence, hooliganism, mob rule, climate change, health reform

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When the salutation, “All my relations” is spoken or written these days, many people think this quaint and perhaps a little presumptuous. But, the expression has always expressed a deep and timeless connection between people that celebrates relationships between people, places and other beings. “All my relations” also speaks to a collective memory among people that extends back deep into the beginning.

In the western hemisphere including Greenland and the far eastern part of the Eurasian continent that touches Alaska and Japan we recognize a human family spread out, living in different climates and ecosystems.  The differences are responses to the place, plants, animals and view of the sky. The sameness of members of a vast family bespeaks a distant root branched out over the continents. There is one family of native peoples making up the whole, but many cultures with different languages, social practices, economic activities, and ways of praising grandmother and grandfather.

Long told in stories and remembered in numerous ways, the connection between native peoples in the western hemisphere have remained a constant. Origin stories, legends, songs and dances reach into the distant past and give in metaphor the details of the passage into this world.  Now, according to Science News the biological tracers have been identified by deductive science to affirm what has long been known among the original peoples in the western hemisphere: We are all related.

There are many important differences between native peoples throughout the hemisphere and virtually all have to do with culture; though it is often the case the customs, cultural practices are often similar if not always exactly the same.  The use of song, dance, stories, hunting methods, transportation and even sometimes eating habits are the same or very similar.

It is and always has been true that we have connection between peoples in this hemisphere even as it is true for peoples on other continents. With respect and dignity we salute our friends and family with “All my relations.”

relations, science news, culture, Greenland, Eurasia, North America

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Big International NGOs (BINGOs) like the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy directly cause the displacement of Fourth World peoples from their territories resulting in large numbers of native peoples living as refugees.  Former Publisher and Editor of the magazine Mother Jones Mark Dowie writes in his new book Conservation Refugees that conservation organizations succeeded in establishing 108,000 officially protected conservation areas world-wide since 1900 and that half of these resulted in expelling indigenous peoples–forcing them into permanent refugee status. Displaced in the interest of conservation many indigenous peoples have been forced into poverty, assimilation and “trespassing” on their ancestral lands for food and sustainance. Dowie describes in his book the experience of the Maasai and the San of northeastern Africa and the Kalahari Desert; and the Karen forced into of Thailand and the Adevasis of India.  Native peoples in North and South America have continued to experience the same adverse relations with conservation groups seeking to expell native people while “conserving the land.”  These “conservation” groups fail to recognize that the native peoples are an essential part of the biodiversity in the very areas they seek to conserve. Instead of achieving balanced conservation areas, the BINGOs have succeeded in creating human misery, unbalanced territories and unthinkingly contributed to the adverse effects of climate change.

Mature cultures help ensure the biological diversity of ecological niches all around the world.  It is the forced removal of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands that contributes to the degredation of ecological areas and the violent displacement of whole peoples into destitution and dependency. Forcing indigenous peoples into refugee status contributes to the imbalances that promote the destruction of forests, increased carbon emissions and wider releases of green house gases.  The result: climate change and its adverse effects on all life on the planet.  While it is true that the BINGO effect is only a small part of the climate change dilemma, there is no doubt that conservation without a balance between culture and the natural environment produces mutliple disasters–none of which are healthy for humans.

The United Nations reported at the end of 2008 there are more than 42 million refugees world-wide. Of these people forcibly pushed from their ancestral lands as a result of conservation, conflict and persecution perhaps half or 21 million are indigenous peoples. These are peoples forced from their territories like the Far pushed by the Sudaneese supported Arab tribesmen into Chad from Darfur. Indigenous peoples in Pakistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Somalia, Republic of the Congo, Lebanon and in Columbia are among those now forced into refugee status.  There are native peoples refugees still in the United States, Canada and Mexico resulting from wars against the various indigenous peoples from the 19th century through to the present.

Indigenous peoples forced from their ancestral lands by violent clashes with invading forces continues as it has for more than four centuries. Conservation groups and their big brothers in the non-governmental organization arena should be natural allies to native peoples, yet they persist in their efforts to close off ancestral lands to the very people who balance the ecosystem with their cultural practices. BINGOs failure to fully appreciate the importance of balanced cultural and biological diversity in nature reflects the kind of narrow minded actions of those who would displace native peoples through conflict and oppression. This type of thinking is also responsible for the growing disaster we now recognize as climate change. BINGO conservation efforts and violent conflicts combined with the stupid production of poisonous chemicals and overuse of carbon-based energy sources will make all people refugees one day, but refugees with no place in which to seek refuge.

BINGO, Worldwide Fund for Nature, Conservation International, Nature Consevancy, indigenous peoples, Mother Jones, Mark Dowie, Maasai, Darfur, biological diversity, cultural diversity, United Nations, refugees, climate change

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After reading and listening to columnists and television and radio commentators twist and turn their words to argue against holding US officials accountable for torturing of detainees under the control of the CIA and the US Defense department I now understand how it was possible for Germans to turn their attention away from the genocidal policies of the Adolph Hitler government during the 1930s and 40s. The US government put in place laws against torture and signed international agreements (authored by US representatives) after World War II.  I was born just after the end of World War II. I grew up learning that the decisions at the Nuremberg trials holding German officials high and low accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity was the moral and judicious thing to do. A government’s policy that authorizes war crimes and crimes against humanity is not protection, and must not be a protection, against prosecution and punishment.  The German people know this now. The Japanese people who also saw the US commit to trial and punishment violators of war crimes laws and crimes against humanity understand this concept too.

Now, for eight years, the United States government policy was to authorize the commission of a crime–violate US laws and international laws which are required to be made a part of the “Law of the Land.” The law is the law and must be administered by the chief law enforcement officer in the United States. There is no political decision to be made here.  Acts of torture were committed against individuals in violation of US law. No one who authorized, authored, directed or directly committed the acts of torture must be relieved of their responsibility.  If the “law” means anything then it must be enforced.

Uygurs from East Turkistan (northwest China) have been held in Guantanomo prison for no crime they committed.  Other indigenous peoples are being killed and tortured for no crime they committed acts against indigenous peoples are crimes against humanity.  US policy has sanctioned such acts.

Americans have a strange notion of their “exceptional” position above all other peoples. Not only is this an ignorant assertion it is dangerous.  With such an attitude Americans allow themselves to behave in bestial ways while seeking to condemn and punish others for bestial acts. Stalin’s Russia behaved the same way and Americans condemned Russians and Stalin for acts of torture, gulogs, mass killings and population removals. Countless other horrific actions have been taken by other governments containing individuals who were “following policy” — said another way: “following orders.”

Nuremberg established the rule that “following orders” in the commission of a crime is no defense. Individuals are supposed to make a judgment about the moral good and the immoral. Individuals are suppose to be able to decide good and evil unless they are judged “crazy.”

Stop with the apologies, rationalizations suggesting that “we just move on!” Stop with the suggestion that “the world is in crisis, we don’t need a distraction.” I am sorry, but a crime or crimes have been committed. If the US is to be civilized and exist as a state that acts in accord to laws and not from human emotion, then the laws must be enforced.

As European jurists have already announced, and the authorities in the United Nations responsible for dealing with torture and war crimes suggest…if the US government does not fulfill its legal obligations under domestic and international law to put to trial and convict those deemed responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity then others must take direct action to seek prosecution of US officials.

That is a determination the US government made long ago when the international torture agreements were made.  The US must live by the laws all humanity now subscribes to and seeks to enforce. President Barak Obama does not have a political choice.  He should step aside and let the US Justice Department perform its duty as prescribed by the US Constitution.

war crimes, crimes against humanity, uygurs, east turkistan, Obama, US Justice Department

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Complexity is a challenge to the mind and the soul. Bigness combined with complexity is a challenge humans should work to avoid…especially in their institutions and other social organizations. When it is too big and too complex for humans to manage and control, an institution or social organization will collapse or rule human behavior leaving human beings impotent.

Such is the problem with “banks too big to fail,” auto manufacturers “too big to fail,” and a collapsing economy too complex to understand and respond to human intervention.

This is the condition we have overwhelming the world’s financially dependent societies. This is the calamity now destroying individual and family lives.

The cause of this rush to form a global financial system “too large to fail” rests with corporations that have exceeded their role and responsibility in society. The cause is the idea that unlimited growth of anything is desirable. The cause is unfettered greed. “Bigger is better,” so the propaganda resounds in the advertisements for everything from a meal to a car to a house to a company.  The one thing advocates of unlimited growth called for that wasn’t the propaganda line? Regulation and control of government growth…make smaller government…meaning impotent government.

What a sly advertising campaign.  Make the only representative of the people’s voice and interests impotent by demeaning it and describing “government as the problem.”

Since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher rose to power in the two leading English-speaking governments, these notions…this propaganda…has reigned subordinating good sense and human need.

“Too big to fail” is a strange idea.  Indeed, if it is too big it must fail.  Human beings must be able to comprehend what they construct. Failure to do so ensure human impotence.  We must work to maintain our institutions and social bodies at human scale and avoid creating monstrosities that become a threat to life and limb.

The only solution to growth is intentional division, breaking down big things into smaller things. Then will it be possible for humans to maintain human scale institutions that benefit human beings.

bigness, human scale, banks, auto manufacture

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Political leaders who commit human rights violations, commit torture or genocide do not admit to committing a crime–they blame their actions on the public they supposedly represent. Ghastly, inhuman acts committed are always justified by the acts of the other or someone else…never the person committing the act. And so it was when American military people committed unspeakable acts of violence and horror against American Indian tribes in the 18th and 19th centuries they justified their acts by describing their victims as uncivilized savages. When Adolph Hitler’s government and companies working for the government committed horribly unspeakable acts against Jews, Slavs, Roma and homosexuals their acts were justified by those committing the crimes by claiming their victims were uncivilized and subhuman.

Now the American government’s President George Bush and his Vice President Richard Cheney justify their authorized acts of torture against individuals only George Bush could identify as combatants and terrorists as being within the law–made so in a series of memorandums written at the request of Bush and Cheney cronies.

Criminal acts are criminal acts and war crimes are war crimes. Political leaders are supposed to have the good sense to say No! when the urge to act against the law arises. Failure to exercise good judgment and act humanely cannot fail to be punished otherwise those who allow and commit acts of genocide, ethnocide, torture, and murder join in a great conspiracy that degrades the human spirit. Representatives in the United States Congress are now discussing ways to investigate and indict those who committed crimes during the eight years of George Bush’s government must be encouraged. Citizens of 145 other countries in the world that signed anti-torture agreements must be vigilant to seek out those who successfully illude trials in the United States.

I only wish that such actions had been taken against those who committed crimes against Indian peoples all over the Americas. Those who authorized and committed the crime of torture must now be punished.

torture, war crimes, George Bush, Cheney, genoide, ethnocide

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Indigenous representatives delegated to observe the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland met in morning sessions of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change every day for two weeks. Drawing on very limited financial resources delegates traveled from Africa, Asia, South America, North America, the Pacific Region and Europe. Some could stay in Poznan for a week or less while a few were able to stay through the two weeks.

What happened? Well, having arrived for the second week I saw that delegates who had already departed agreed to their frustration that indigenous representatives had no formal role in the the conference except to meet in the morning sessions. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues should have been at the conference facilitating indigenous participation, but it was not. Suprisingly only a single former member of the Permanent Forum was present. More than 5000 delegates from non-governmental organizations (corporations, advocacy organizations, civil society organizations, labor organizations, etc). States’ government delegations representing about 192 states sent nearly 4000 delegates and multi-lateral organizations (UN, ILO, OAS, etc) sent the remainder of what would be about 10,000 participants listed in the roster.

The frustration among indigenous delegates was palpable with not having the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognized by the UN conference as a legitimate and relevant instrument of state agreement. This frustration followed the realization that the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) initiative fails to recognize the territorial rights of indigenous peoples.

REDD focuses on:

    »the causes of deforestation
    »policy tools for REDD, including bilateral and multilateral cooperation
    »ways to provide incentives for REDD, including financial mechanisms, and
    »technical issues associated with measuring REDD and implementing policies for REDD.

One of the risks of the REDD initiative is that states’ governments often claim ownership of forests and tend to ignore indigenous peoples and their original use and occupation of the forests.  It is on this issue that delegates participating in the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change sessions expressed their outrage and opposition.

Indigenous delegates also agreed that the Conference must formally acknowledge the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and its relevance to the overarching debate about climate change and remedies for climate change.  The delegates noted that the states’ governments and NGOs present ignored this recently adopted UN policy.  Indigenous delegates also advocated the establishment of an Expert Group of Indigenous on Climate Change as a formal body of the Conference of Parties to advise on policies deemed important to the climate change dialog by indigenous peoples.

Indigenous delegates met with the Bolivian government’s lead delegate for a discussion about conveying the Indigenous Forum issues to the Plenary session. Bolivia’s official affirmed his government’s support for Indigenous peoples, but step lightly around the possibility of formally tabling the three main concerns of the Indigenous forum to the Plenary session.

While the Indigenous delegations were frustrated by the wide gap between indigenous issues and concerns and those of the states’ governments, the gap between states’ governments appeared to be equally wide over setting targets for carbon dioxide emission limits by 2020 and 2050.  Indeed, the conference can be said to have failed to achieve this major goal completely.  The United States government delegation appeared to have been a major obstacle to agreement along with the diverted focus of states’ delegates frantically concerned about the global financial crisis.  The US policies are short sighted–favoring business profits over carbon reductions, and suddenly European, Asian and Africa states became equally short sighted with their concerns over the failing economy. The pending climate disaster laid on the table, but the currency question covered it up.

States’ governments did agree to focus on developing country needs for support on climate change policy implementation, technology transfer and the institution of mechanisms to assist developing countries.  This appears to be the major accomplishment of the conference.

While indigenous delegates were clearly frustrated (as delegates had been in the Bali conference in 2007), and states’ governments’ stalled on their goal for targeted emissions reductions preparatory for a treaty in 2009 (which appears will be delayed by a year now) there were some quiet gains that may produce important changes in the process in 2009.  Preliminary talks between some indigenous delegates and several states’ government representatives produced the possibility of a mutually agreed establishment of a contact group for formalizing a dialog on climate change policy over the next twelve months and during the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen in December 2009.  This small opening between states’ governments and indigenous nations may well produce a new level of cooperation between these important parties that could have an important influence on the success or failure of the new climate change treaty.  I hope this is true.  It is clear to me that indigenous peoples must be seated at the same table as the states’ governments to participate in final decisions about the future of humanity.  Without this important step we may see yet another failure in 2009 and 2010.

So long as the states’ governments practice short sightedness, the human prospect grows dimmer. All of the people with knowledge and experience must come to the table…all must be accepted as equal partners.

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After the First Session of the new round of talks on Climate Change
ended last year in Bali, Indonesia a press reporter lamented the
absence of the voice of indigenous people at the table.  Noting that
indigenous peoples around the world suffer directly from the adverse
affects of industrial carbon emissions and other global warming gases
the reporter said the absence of the important voice of indigenous
people was a serious error.

Now it is more than fourteen months since the Bali meeting sponsored by
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came to a
dramatic end with the United States of America being shamed by the
delegate from Papua New Guinea into agreeing to participate in the
unfolding agenda. Four agenda-setting meetings and expert meetings have
been conducted in places like Bangkok, Accra and Berlin and still
delegates from indigenous nations have not been invited to sit at the
table.

A Conference of Parties meeting number 14 (COP14) is about to convene
in Poznan, Poland beginning December 1. In advance of that meeting the
Minority Rights Group in London released a call for the Poznan meeting
to include indigenous peoples.  Well, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference
will go to that meeting and sit as an observer. It is possible that a
few indigenous nations will decided to send observers even though there
is not place at the table for them to actively and formally participate
in the talks.  The Poznan meeting will literally set the terms of
reference for what will be an agreement on Climate Change to be tabled
in November 2009 at what will be called the Conference of Parties 15
(COP15) meeting in Copenhagen.  Denmark has noted quietly that no
indigenous nation delegates are planned for participation in the COP15
negotiations. Importantly, Denmark and Sweden have begun commenting on
the importance of indigenous nations participating in the COP15 meeting.

States’ governments have seriously faltered over the past decades when
the question of indigenous nations’ participation in international
meetings is concerned.  The most vociferous opponents of indigenous
nations, oddly enough, has been the United States of America…and when
it comes to Tibet and East Turkestan (Uygurs) and the millions of
peoples China has categorized as “nationalities” the Peoples’ Republic
of China has also been a major opponent.

If there was ever a time when indigenous nations should sit as equal
parties at negotiations affecting the health of all humanity, the earth
and all else that time is now.  Indigenous nations like Tibet, East
Turkestan, Quinault, Kurdistan, Haudenosaunee, Zapotec, Igbo, Luo,
Shan, Dene, Sami, Inuit and thousands of others must be official
parties, equal to states’ governments, in negotiations establishing the
next round of climate change protocols. No longer observers, indigenous
nations must be active, recognized participants with a vote in the
outcome.

Indigenous nations possess knowledge about nature, climate and the
cosmos that states’ government scientist and philosophers simply lack.
The voice of indigenous nations must be heard and in many instances
heeded for everyone’s sake.

climate change, Poznan, indigenous peoples, UN Framework Convention, COP14, COP15

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President Obama has another challenge facing his foreign policy, environmental policy, economic policy and social policy: climate change driven conflicts throughout the world.

The Kansas City Star reported today what has for sometime been observed by scholars and diplomats: climate change, especially rapid changes are changing environments in such a way as to force whole populations to move into each other’s territories…thus giving rise to greater competition for foods, space and water.  The competition grows into conflicts and eventually violence. Instead of “preemptive war” as US President George Bush  has advocated, the world needs “preemptive diplomacy.”

Here are the conditions the Kansas City Star summarizes in its Sunday edition, that studies indicate are increasing pressures on populations:

•People see their fertile land turn arid and migrate — packing them closer to historical and newfound adversaries.

•Countries already weak or crippled by corruption tip into chaos with even moderate climate change. Crop failures spur violent uprisings and give new energy to ethnic grudges in the face of famine.

•Competition for resources — food, water, oil — grows more tense in times of scarcity.

•Economic collapse in North Africa gives rise to Islamist extremism as blame for climate change focuses on the West. By accident of history and geography, Islamic countries feel the first profound effects of climate change.

•Flooding of coastal areas — particularly in South Asia and the United States — force severe migration and alter regional and even national identities.

•A push to revive the nuclear power industry — as a way to find energy that doesn’t belch more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — masks rogue countries’ efforts to build atomic weapons.

Diplomacy that preempts conflict, diverts conflict to peaceful solutions must become a priority of every country. Colleges and universities as well as think tanks ought to strengthen their international relations programs to support greater diplomatic capacity to increase the ability of stronger and more stable states to diplomatically intervene in weaker countries that are threatened by environmental conflicts. These conflicts will naturally emerge in environmentally challenged regions of the world and they will include subregions in stable and unstable states. Fourth World nations will be at the center of most of these conflicts since their territories are often the most sensitive to environmental change. Special diplomatic skills will be needed to successfully minimize conflicts. Diplomatic preemption will minimize the tendency toward violence and when supplemented by intelligent environmental, social and economic policies such intervention will reduce the use of war as a means of solving political problems.

The new governments in Europe, China, India, Africa, South America and North America must establish international diplomatic cooperation to meet this new and threatening challenge with intelligence and maturity.
 

climate change, environment, conflict, diplomacy

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