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Showing posts from July, 2011

The United States of Tyranny and Injustice

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Portrait from Robert Shetterly http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org It's been awhile since we've written. There is so much harm occurring throughout the world on so many levels that it is difficult to decide which is the most worthy of discussion. One of the most recent atrocities (beyond the indirect genocide occurring in Africa) is the sentencing of environmental activist Tim DeChristopher to two years in prison. Our criminal justice system is criminal, not just. It rarely defends real people yet always manages to defend white collar corporate thieves and murderers. Instead of writing why the sentencing of DeChristopher is a travesty, I will just let this strikingly intelligent and moral young hero speak for himself, as he did prior to his sentencing: Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the court.  When I first met Mr. Manross, the sentencing officer who prepared the presentence report, he explained that it was essentially his job to “get to know me.

On July 4th, Rejecting the Immoral "American Dream"

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Courtesy adbusters.org The United States of America can dream only because of one of the most extensive acts of genocide in recorded human history. When Europeans landed in the region that was eventually to include the United States, there were people here. Population estimates vary, but a conservative estimate is 12 million north of the Rio Grande, perhaps 2 million in what is now Canada and the rest in what is now the continental United States. By the end of the so-called Indian Wars, the 1900 census recorded 237,000 indigenous people in the United States. That’s an extermination rate of 95 to 99 percent.[3] That is to say, the European colonists and their heirs successfully eliminated almost the entire indigenous population -- or the “merciless Indian Savages” as they are labeled in the Declaration of Independence, one of the most famous articulations of the American Dream. Almost every Indian died in the course of the European invasion to create the United States so that we ma