syəcəb
Early Head Start will be hosting an Art Auction on August 15, 2013. It will be held in the Early Head Start gymnasium, 7615 Totem Beach Rd Marysville, WA 98271, from 2-6 p.m.
Children’s artwork, from ages birth to 4 years old, will be auctioned off. The proceeds will go towards the Early Head Start end of the year celebration and for art supplies for the children’s classrooms.
Please come enjoy all the fine art that these children have made.
Source: Navajo-Hopi Observer
TEMPE, Ariz.-Journalists covering Indian country received training and discussed Native American issues during the 29th annual National Native Media Conference in Tempe July 18-21.
The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and Native Public Media sponsored the conference.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Our voices, Our stories, Our future.” The conference was designed to empower native journalists and media professionals to tell their own stories. Journalism professionals lead sessions to train native journalists to tell their stories in a professional manner.
Arizona was well represented with journalists attending from the Navajo Hopi Observer, Navajo Times, Tutuveni and KUYI radio station among many others.
The issues those in attendance focused on included violence against women, dental care and the availability of radio frequencies for Indian communities.
Deborah Parker, vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribe in Washington state, fought successfully to have native women included in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The act was signed into law this past year and promises sweeping changes in the way violent offenders on tribal land are held accountable.
Parker spoke about the legislative process and media coverage of the fight to protect women in Indian country.
“This is also an opportunity to teach our young people about laws, the past and what our future looks like,” she said.
When Parker first started to look into the Violence Against Women Act, people told her that it didn’t have the steam to include native women on reservations because “they have no face here.”
“That made me angry,” she said. “I could see all these faces that were from my bloodline.”
With the help of U.S. Sen Pat Murray, D-Wash. Parker put on a news conference and spoke about the lack of prosecutions of non-Indians committing crimes against women on reservations.
“It was amazing to be that voice,” she said. “The Senate was abuzz. How could they not include Native American women?”
Parker continued to work with the National Congress of American Indians to see the bill passed with inclusion of protecting native women. She said many racist comments came out of the House of Representatives. Some congressmen doubted whether Indian governments had the ability to arrest non-Indian men.
At the beginning of the process, she said one congressman was outspoken against the inclusion of Indian women, but Parker was able to get him to change his mind. She said the way to change the minds of elected officials is to personalize the stories.
“So many children, women and men came forward with what happened to them as children, teenagers and adults,” she said.
Tribes have until 2015 to implement the law with help from the U.S. Department of Justice.
One statistic states that 88 percent of crimes against women on reservations are committed by non-Indians. She said some congressmen did not believe that statistic.
Eric Cantor, R- Va., a conservative congressman, was one of those opposed to including native women in the law. When Parker met with Cantor’s aide, she told Parker that neither she nor the congressman had met a Native American.
“There are a lot in congress who don’t understand us politically, spiritually and traditionally,” she said.
Parker said she knows of several hundred women who have been murdered on reservations without any justice.
Parker said the media was a big help in covering the Violence Against Women Act.
Another topic at the conference was the crisis in rural America, including on reservations, where there are no oral health providers. Lack of dental services and dental problems can cause disease and sometimes death.
Indian Health Service’s dental provider vacancies average 20-30 percent.
Alaska natives have offered one solution by creating the Dental Health Aide Therapist program. Tribes could replicate the program in other parts of the country.
The Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health at A.T. Still University in Mesa recently graduated six American Indians to help fill the need.
Dr. George Blue Spruce, the first native dentist in Arizona, said the dental problem also includes a lack of Native American dentists.
Spruce, 82, said until Native Americans can go to a native dentist, Indian self-determination remains a myth.
The others leading this session included Dr. Todd Hartsfield, DDS faculty at A.T. Still; Maxine Brings Him Back-Janis, faculty at Northern Arizona University; Connie Murat, dental aide therapist at Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation and Yvette Joseph, project manager at Kaufman and Associates. W.K. Kellogg Foundation sponsored the dental session.
Geoffrey Blackwell, chief of the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Office of Native Affairs and Policy, announced that those seeking non-commercial radio stations on reservations can apply for low frequency FM radio stations between Oct. 15 and Oct. 29.
President Barack Obama recently signed the Local Community Radio Act, which mandates expansion of low power FM radio stations that provide listening areas of three to 10 miles.
Since 2000, the government has licensed more than 800 low power FM stations.
A session also took place on the importance of bringing more broadband services to reservations. Those leading this session included Loris Taylor from Native Public Media; Traci Morris from Homaholta Consulting, Michael Copps, from the FCC and Blackwell.
Taylor, a member of the Hopi Tribe, said in order for native radio stations to be successful they need champions on the inside who are non-Indians. She pointed to Coppes as one such champion.
Coppes said that better broadband means more money creating more jobs, education and health care. He said that broadband services throughout the U.S. are not as good as they should be.
“It’s not just Native Americans. Everybody in the country is being held back, especially in the rural villages. We need a sense of mission,” he said.
Blackwell said broadband is as important as roads and water. He said the FCC and tribes need to work together on bringing more broadband services to Indian country.
Blackwell noted that local radio stations continue to provide life saving services such as announcing when tornadoes will hit.
“Lives can be on the line when you can’t get a signal,” he said.
Blackwell said his office works with 50 Indian tribes at any given time. He hopes that his office will soon announce that there will be consultations and trainings to bring more broadband to Indian country this coming fiscal year.
Tim Giago was one of the founders of NAJA and one of the many elder journalists who received recognition during the conference. He founded the Lakota Times in 1981 when the Pine Ridge Reservation was located in the poorest county in America.
Giago, 80, had his office firebombed, his office windows shot out and his life threatened, but he continued publishing until he sold the paper in 1998.
Giago urged the young journalists not to get discouraged. He also offered them some advice.
“You can do a thousand good things, but if you do one bad thing that is what will be remembered,” he said.
By Steve Shaw, News9.com
ANADARKO, Oklahoma – A power struggle between factions of the Apache Indian Tribe of Oklahoma has spilled into the operation of an Anadarko Casino operated by the Tribe.
About 60 employees of the Silver Buffalo Casino say they were supposed to get paychecks last Friday. But they haven’t gotten those checks.
They say the casino gave them each $200 in cash Monday, but that doesn’t come close to covering what is owed to them.
Donnie Cabannis says he’s chairman of Oklahoma’s Apache Tribe, and that the casino workers are getting stiffed because his rivals have stolen money that was intended for them.
“There’s a lot of corruption going on in our casinos now, and we need to take control of that,” he said Tuesday.
However, Tribal Administrator Ernest Redbird says Cabannis is no longer the Chairman. And he says Cabannis’ claim that money has been stolen is not true.
“I think um there’s been miscommunication of money being transferred from one bank to another,” he said.
Late Tuesday, we were told those casino workers would finally get their paychecks at 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
By Yotam Maron, Waging Nonviolence
I suppose it wasn’t really until I was standing on the west side of Hoboken, N.J., in water and oil up to my thigh, that climate change really made sense. And it wasn’t until I was out organizing on New York City’s outer beaches after Hurricane Sandy that I understood my sluggishness on climate justice was nothing short of climate change denial.
It seems like everywhere we turn, we’re being fed the same old climate Armageddon story. You’ve heard it, I’m sure: If we continue to be dependent on fossil fuels, hundreds of gigatons of CO2 will continue to pour into the atmosphere, the temperature will rise above 2 degrees Celsius, and we’re done. There will be a biblical cocktail of hurricanes, floods, famines, wars. It will be terrifying, awful, epic and, yes, as far as any reputable scientist is concerned, those projections are for real.I call this narrative the Armageddon Complex, and my own denial was a product of it. I spun all sorts of stories to keep the climate crisis out of my life, ranging anywhere from “it can’t be that bad” to “if it is that bad, there’s nothing I can do about it,” and “it’s not my role. That’s for climate activists; I’m a different kind of activist.”
I did not act alone, but rather as part of a culture of climate denial among activists, who are already plagued by a tendency to see our work as separate issues vying for attention. The Armageddon Complex tells us that climate activism is about some far-off date, not about the pressing and time-sensitive needs that people around us experience in their day-to-day struggles. It pounds into us the idea that the crisis is more titanic than any other, so if we’re going to do anything about it, we have to doeverything. Most of us won’t put off the pressing needs of our families and communities for something we abstractly understand is going to happen later, and most of us aren’t willing to drop the other pieces of our lives and our movement to do everything, because we already feel like we’re doing everything and barely scraping by as it is. So we deny.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to this story: The crisis is gargantuan, and it’s getting worse. Ultimately only a fundamental social, political, economic and personal transformation is going to get us out of this mess.
But that’s not the whole story. Climate Armageddon isn’t a Will Smith movie about what happens in 10 years when all hell breaks loose. Climate change is already here: Hurricanes that land on families, rising tides that flood homes, oil spills that drown communities and countless other disasters. These are caused by the same economic and political systems responsible for all the other crises we face — crises in which people are displaced from land, families are ripped out of homes, people lose their jobs, students sink into debt, and on and on.
Defeating climate change doesn’t have to mean dropping everything to become climate activists or ignoring the whole thing altogether. The truth is exactly the opposite: We have to re-learn the climate crisis as one that ties our struggles together and opens up potential for the world we’re already busy fighting for.
Climate moment, not climate movement
In addition to the hurricane were important voices that forced me to confront my denial. Naomi Klein has argued that resisting climate change is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win the world we’ve wanted all along; the proponents of climate change are the same enemies that the Occupy movement and its counterparts around the world have already marked. Vandana Shiva pushes us to see that the intersecting crises of food, climate and economy are all based on a common theme of debt, whileGeorge Monbiot reminds us that the oil profiteering that ruins our climate would be impossible were it not for the insidious relationship between money and politics. These connections mean that the homeowners and activists around the United States putting their bodies on the line to fight foreclosure, the students occupying their universities to fight tuition hikes, the activists fighting for campaign finance reform, the countless who stand up to war — these struggles are our best shot at a climate movement that can really win.
But I learned those same lessons, too, from people in struggle. Farmers in the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement fighting for their land are not so different from the Lubicon Cree in Northern Alberta, Canada, standing in the way of the Keystone XL pipeline that poisons their water, or the residents in Atlanta, Ga., trying to win their homes back from the banks. The working-class white West Virginians resisting fracking are in the same boat as the families in Far Rockaway whose kids’ lungs are infected from living in moldy homes after Hurricane Sandy. They have a lot in common with those in the South Bronx who have been fighting against pollution caused by big business for decades, or the mothers in Detroit who are building urban gardens to cope with food deserts. They’re not so different from the Indian women fighting Monsanto, or those resisting wars fought for oil, and on and on the connections go. We’re all connected by the climate crisis, and the opportunities it opens for us.
The fight for the climate isn’t a separate movement, it’s both a challenge and an opportunity for all of our movements. We don’t need to become climate activists, weare climate activists. We don’t need a separate climate movement; we need to seize the climate moment. Ultimately, our task is to create moments for our various movements that allow us to continue our different battles while also working in solidarity to strike at the roots of the systems beneath the symptoms.
Think Turkey and Brazil. Think Arab Spring, and the uprisings against austerity all over Europe. Think the student movements from Quebec to Chile. Think Occupy. These were collective uprisings that drew lines and demanded that people decide which side they were on. It’s our role to prepare for these kinds of “which side are you on?” moments for the climate by training and practicing, by re-focusing on the issues that connect us, by building institutions that can support us in long-term struggle. We don’t stop our other organizing or drop the many other pieces of our lives; we organize the people with whom we already stand in order to seize these moments when they come — to tell stories, take spaces, and challenge enemies of the climate.
Learning from hurricanes
In the New York City neighborhood of Far Rockaway, climate justice is common sense. What I had only read articles and books about before, I learned a thousand times over from people on the front lines of climate crisis after Hurricane Sandy.
As part of Occupy Sandy and the Wildfire Project, I joined the relief effort, which quickly became an organizing project — training, political education, and supporting the growth of a group that is now active across the Rockaways. Between contesting the city’s vision for a recovery, fighting against stop-and-frisk, and organizing against gentrification, the working-class, multiracial Far Rockaway Wildfire group knows that their task is about more than relief from a hurricane — it is also to deal with the crises that existed before the hurricane, and the systems underlying them.
The fight is about winning back the social safety net that has been slashed by the same economic and political elite that profits from fossil fuels. It’s about the wages that have shrunk as elites have profited, about the jobs working people have lost as the bosses have been bailed out. It’s about ensuring sustainable mass transit so people can get to work. It’s about affordable housing, a need that existed before the storm, made worse now by the threat of disaster capitalist schemes to knock down projects and replace them with beach-front condos. It’s about contesting a political system that uses moments of crisis to further disenfranchise working people and people of color. It’s about overturning an economic system that is wrecking the planet while turning a profit for the most powerful, putting 40 percent of the wealth of this country into the hands of 1 percent of the population. It’s about creating alternatives in our communities, while fighting to make those alternatives the norm.
When you’re out on those beaches in Far Rockaway it’s clear that there isn’t any far-off climate Armageddon to wait for. The hurricanes are already smashing down around us, and they’re the same hurricanes as the ones we have fought all along — systems like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy that shape one another and all the values and institutions that govern our lives. By fighting those systems, we’re already the seeds of the climate movement we’ve been dreaming of. We only need to overcome our denial, find points of intersection in our struggles, and prepare for those moments in which people finally sit down or stand up in the critical intersections of human history. It won’t be long now.
By Curtis Kline, Intercontinental Cry
On April 10 of 2013 the Queen of England received a letter sent to her by the Murrawarri Nation of northern New South Wales and Queensland in Australia. This letter was actually a notice for the declaration of independent sovereign statehood of the Murrawarri Nation. The Queen was given 28 days to produce one of three situations accepted in international law as well as British Common Law that recognized the governed taking over or acquiring of new land.
The three situations could have been: 1) A declaration of war and a subsequent victory; 2) The signing of a treaty or agreement; and 3) a lack of occupation of that land by other peoples.
The Murrawarri Nation requested that the Queen give proof of any of these three situations. Treaty documents between the Murrawarri and the British Crown, a deed of concession showing that the Murrawarri have indeed ceded their sovereignty, dominion and ultimate authority to the Crown of Great Britain, or documents showing a declaration of war against the Murrawarri Nation would have all qualified.
However, the fact is that none of these documents exist, the Murrawarri Nation never signed any treaty with the British Crown, and war was never declared. This, along with the decision by the High Court in the Mabo case which stated that the principal of Terra Nullius–that the land was not under occupation at the time of Captain Cook’s coming to Australia–was complete fiction and no longer defensible, meant the Queen could produce no such evidence.
In fact, the Queen did not even respond, allowing the Murrawarri Nation to de facto claim recognition of their Republic as an independent nation.
The Republic of Murrawarri is now functioning with a Peoples Council as an interim government. With its first meeting on July 13 the Peoples Council elected chairman Fred Hooper, passed a resolution to establish a Provisional Council of State. A constitution and a bill of rights have already been drafted.
The permanent government, when formed, will consist of a parliament of 54 representatives appointed by their respective ancestral family groups within their respective provinces. The representatives will strictly be half male and half female. There will also be four representatives from non-ancestral Murrawarri provinces, and residents who are not of Murrawarri descent will be allowed to stay on their land and automatically be granted Murrawarri citizenship.
In the declaration, the Murrawarri strongly claim their right to self-determination in both asserting the existence of this right as well as claiming how the Nation will put it to use.
In the Declaration of the Continuance of the State of Murrawarri Nation, it is stated that:
We the Murrawarri Peoples declare our people have maintained a physical, spiritual and cultural connection to our Ancient Lands, Subsurface, Natural Resources, Waters and Airspace and we did not cede our Sovereignty Dominion and Ultimate Title through any process of treaty nor through any act of war declared on the Murrawarri Nation and its peoples by the British Crown, Government or their servants.
As well as:
The Murrawarri Republic will foster the developmentof the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on spiritual, cultural, freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by our peoples. It will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of culture, religion, conscience, language, and education; it will safeguard our sacred places handed down to us by our creator and our ancestors; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
The Murrawarri Nation’s act of self-determination has been an inspiring story. Already 27 other Aboriginal groups in Australia have requested Murrawarri’s declarations and constitution to use as templates for their own independence movements. The Republic of Murrawarri is also turning its attention to establishing a reparations and repatriation process with the Australian government and the Queen of England. This would include negotiations for the transfer of all monies collected plus interest by the government and the Crown for the illegal use of land, natural resources, and water within the Murrawarri Republic’s boundaries from the time of the first illegal land grant.
The right of self-determination of all peoples is foundational in international law, and is the first article in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples also states the right to self-determination of Indigenous Peoples, under Article 3:
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Disappointingly, since the decolonization era, it has been assumed by many that the right to self-determination is no longer meaningful. However, as exemplified in the case of the Murrawarri Nation, decolonization is far from complete, and the right of self-determination is crucial to the protection of Indigenous Peoples around the world.
Communities and organizations around the Great Lakes received heartening news over the weekend. A plan to ship radioactive waste across the Lakes was officially cancelled after years of community opposition.
Swedish company Studsvik announced that the plan was annulled in its interim report for the first half of 2013.
As you may remember, Bruce Power had proposed shipping 16 bus-size radioactive steam generators across the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean to Sweden for the nuke waste to be decontaminated.
City mayors, U.S. Senators, environmental and nuclear groups, indigenous communities and other civil society groups raised many important concerns about this shipment including the potential for water contamination and the lack of adequate community consultation. The shipment would have passed through British, Danish and Swedish waters and many European organizations and communities spoke out against the shipments.
This is a huge victory for communities around the Great Lakes and shows what can be achieved when people come together with passion and purpose.
However, the need to protect the Great Lakes from nuclear waste is not over. We need to use this victory as fuel for stopping plans to bury nuclear waste in the Great Lakes Basin. Ontario Power Generation has proposed a plan to bury low and intermediate level waste on the shores of Lake Huron. And there are further plans to find a willing community in Ontario or Saskatchewan that would bear the brunt of a high-level nuke waste site.
Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map (Credit: Great Lakes United and the International Institute of Concern for Public Health)
Article Adapted for Intercontinental Cry under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Originally published at Canadians.org
Source: indianz.com
A fire that destroyed the headquarters of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation appears to have been an accident, The Wenatchee World reported.
The preliminary investigation didn’t turn up anything suspicious, the paper said. The fire apparently started in the basement before spreading to the rest of the building.
Cedar was used throughout the entire structure, which hastened its demise. The headquarters was 40 years old and was built before the tribe updated its fire code.
“Cedar is important to our people, and I understand why it was built from cedar,” Chairman Michael Finley told the paper. “But when you look at it from the perspective of a fire marshal, it may not be the best building material.”
The tribe lost an untold number of official records in the fire.
Source: indianz.com
Michael L. Connor, a descendant of Taos Pueblo, will be nominated as deputy secretary of the Interior Department.
Connor has served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation since 2009. He has worked on negotiating and implementing several tribal water rights settlements.
“Mike will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the position after two decades in public service working on energy, conservation and water issues,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a press release.
“He has proven himself to be a thoughtful and collaborative leader on some of the toughest challenges at the Department – including finding sustainable solutions to water challenges in the West and resolving Indian water rights claims. Interior will be well served by his commonsense approach in the Deputy position.”
If confirmed by the Senate, Connor would be the first Native American descendant in the second-highest ranking post at DOI. He would succeed David Hayes, who left the Obama administration in June.
Suzette Brewer, Indian Country Today Media Network
Before the adoption of Veronica Brown to Matt and Melanie Capobianco was finalized yesterday in a South Carolina courtroom, the Native American Rights Fund made good on its promised Civil Rights litigation, filing a complaint late Tuesday night in federal district court on behalf of the girl’s right to due process in a “meaningful hearing” to determine her best interest. The courts in South Carolina failed to “take into account or require any inquiry” regarding Veronica’s current circumstances before approving the transition plan provided by Matt and Melanie Capobianco of James Island.
RELATED: Baby Veronica Must Return to Adoptive Parents
Supreme Court Thwarts ICWA Intent in Baby Veronica Case
Anger Erupts Across Indian Country Over Baby Veronica Ruling
Native American Rights Fund: Stop the Forced Removal of Baby Veronica
Additionally, the suit (V.B. v. Daniel E. Martin, Family Court for the Ninth Judicial Circuit) declares that Veronica is a tribal member and remains an “Indian Child” under the Indian Child Welfare Act, and therefore she “possesses a federally protected right” to a best interest hearing under federal law.
Supported by dozens of tribes, civil rights and child welfare groups, adoption advocacy organizations, legal authorities and Native American groups, the complaint seeks federal jurisdiction over the case, as well as an injunction prohibiting South Carolina courts from further proceedings pending a full and “meaningful” best interest hearing.
Angel Smith, an Oklahoma attorney appointed by the Cherokee Nation to represent Veronica as a tribal member, filed the motion on the girl’s behalf.
The Cherokee Nation reacted swiftly to the finalization of the adoption and transition plan in South Carolina.
“Today, a Family Court in South Carolina finalized the adoption of an almost 4-year-old Cherokee child who has been living with her unquestionably fit, loving, biological father and large extended family, for one year and seven months, half a continent away in Oklahoma and Cherokee Nation,” said Chrissi Nimmo, assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation. “This decision was made without a hearing to determine what is in Veronica’s current best interests and comes almost two years after the same Family Court found that Dusten Brown was a fit, loving parent and it would be in Veronica’s best interests to be placed with her father. Every parent in America should be terrified.
Dusten Brown is an honorable man and a good father. Cherokee Nation will continue to support Dusten, Veronica and the entire Brown family in their attempt to keep their family whole.”
Dusten Brown, who is currently in training with the National Guard, also issued the following statement:
“Our family is shocked and deeply saddened that the South Carolina Supreme Court has refused to allow Veronica’s best interest to be considered. Even worse, that Court issued an order they acknowledge will cause my daughter to suffer harm. The Court gave its blessing to the transition plan offered by the Capobiancos that says upon transfer to them, Veronica will be ‘fearful, scared, anxious, confused,’” said Brown.
“They say she will likely become quiet and withdrawn and may cry herself to sleep. That the transfer will cause ‘grief’ and ‘loss’ and she will feel ‘rejected’ by me and her family. They say it will leave her with many ‘unanswered questions.’ I will not voluntarily let my child go through that, no parent would. I am her father and it is my job to protect her. My family and I continue to pray that the justice system bring justice to Veronica.”
RELATED: Inseparable Sisters: Adoption Order Exacts Toll on Baby Veronica’s Family
But legal experts acknowledged that the fight over custody of Veronica is not only not over, but has now moved into a whole new level of litigation. In spite of South Carolina’s ruling yesterday, enforcement in Oklahoma courts will now be the focus of the case.
“Everything will now move to Washington County, Oklahoma, where Veronica now resides,” said a legal scholar who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing litigation. “But it will require a bit of time for any order to be domesticated in that state. You may have an order from South Carolina, but guess what? Veronica’s not in South Carolina. She’s been domiciled in Oklahoma for 19 months and there’s no way a court in Oklahoma is going to approve enforcement of this order without a normal, legal checklist of things that would be required for any other child up that’s been put up for adoption, not to mention a child who is a tribal member and is living with a biological parent.”
For example, the adoption was finalized without a current homestudy or psychological evaluation of any of the parties involved, which legal and child welfare experts say are standard operating procedures.
“It’s called giving ‘full faith and credit’ to another state’s order,” said the expert. “[The legal team] is going to go into court to argue that full faith and credit should not be given to the South Carolina order because the courts there did not follow the law. And Oklahoma, quite frankly, does not have to give full faith and credit if Veronica’s constitutional right to due process has been denied.”
Additionally, observers say that because jurisdiction has been shifted to Oklahoma, the gloves have now come off in a state that was originally founded as “Indian Territory.” With nearly 40 tribes, including the Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma has the second largest American Indian population in the United States. And they have watched the events in Adoptive Couple unfold in South Carolina with growing alarm and disgust.
“How is it that Paul Clement, who wasn’t even a party in this case, walks into the United States Supreme Court and insults every Indian tribe in the country by making this case about blood quantum and fiercely advocating for a ‘best interest’ hearing, only to have it shot down in South Carolina because the judges there think it’s too hard?” asks one Tulsa lawyer who works exclusively in ICWA cases. “It simply boggles the mind that any court would callously disregard the most important party in this case: Veronica herself. The fight is definitely not over.”
Lori Alvino McGill, the attorney for birth mother Christy Maldonado, today dismissed the federal suit to stop the finalization of the adoption as a “publicity stunt,” as tribes across the country continue to unify in support of Veronica and the Indian Child Welfare Act.
RELATED: Baby Veronica’s Mother Finally Speaks Out About Court Case
Baby Veronica’s Birth Mother Files Suit, Claims ICWA Unconstitutional
Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Capobiancos filed their response to Dusten Brown’s request to the U.S. Supreme Court that the South Carolina courts postpone finalization of the adoption until a best interest determination hearing could be held. Chief Justice John Roberts, an adoptive parent himself who sided with the majority against Brown, oversees emergency petitions for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes South Carolina.
Sources in Washington have pointed out that Alvino McGill’s role in Adoptive Couple is more than that of a spokesperson for Christy Maldonado. As it turns out, Chief Justice Roberts and former solicitor general Ted Olson, both of whom sided with the Capobiancos, attended Ms. Alvino McGill’s 2006 wedding to Matthew McGill who, coincidentally, was a clerk for John Roberts in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Therefore, given the cozy nature and small world influence in the Capitol’s legal circles, observers say it was no surprise when Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl was granted petition of certiorari in January.
“Dusten Brown never had a chance,” said the source. “His biggest sin was that he got on the wrong side of the billion dollar U.S. adoption industry and he was winning. [The Supreme Court] knew this when they took cert on this case, otherwise, why would they bother with a custody dispute that should have been nipped in the bud four years ago? And the sad part is that he’s rehabilitated himself in every way in this case. He’s gone to every length to keep his child, he’s done everything asked of him. But it is a system that was stacked against him from the beginning. This is Worcester v. Georgia all over again.”
After the South Carolina court’s ruling finalizing the adoption of his daughter, Dusten Brown made a direct plea to the Capobiancos.
“To Matt and Melanie Capobianco I want to say this: Please, for Veronica’s sake, just stop. Stop, and ask yourself if you really believe this is best for her.”
Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/01/gloves-come-civil-rights-suit-filed-adoption-veronica-finalized-150676
Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today Media Network
The Iron County Board voted on July 30 to postpone action against the Penokee Hills Education Camp, referring the issue back to the Forestry Committee with instructions to work with county and LCO tribal attorneys to find a legal way to allow the camp to remain in the forest.
About 50 people gathered at the Penokee Harvest Camp immediately before the meeting for a flag raising ceremony and tobacco offering by Bad River tribal elder Joe Rose. Lac Courte Oreilles vice chairman Rusty Barber was on hand to personally raise the LCO flag and underscore the cultural and environmental significance of the Camp. “We want to tell our future generations how to use mother earth in the right way,” he said.
More than 100 people showed up at the Iron County courthouse Tuesday night in support of the camp, many carrying signs supporting the Harvest Camp and treaty rights.
The tiny county board meeting room was filled to capacity forcing many people to wait outside and in the hallway. Several people spoke during the public comment period before board members voted, most in opposition to the mine.
Several people giving public comments were overcome with tears as they spoke of the injustice of putting an open pit mine in the Penokees. Others described how the Harvest Camp had turned around their perceptions of Native people who are often scape goated by the mainstream community as opponents to progress and jobs. Aileen Potter of Montreal, a few miles from the proposed mine described how she was taught to fear Native people as a child. “My dad used to tell us to duck down in the car when we drove through the Bad River reservation,” she recalls.
Originally a mine supporter as a way to generate jobs in the community, she has since changed her opinion after learning more about the potential impact on the water and environment. Recently she worked up the courage to visit the Harvest Camp.
“It was scary for me to go out there. I was nervous but Mel (Mel Gaspar, camp leader) greeted me at the entrance and asked if I had come to learn about what was going on there,” she said.
Gaspar gave her a tour of the camp and described the work being done to identify plant species, teach people about traditional Ojibwe gathering methods and determine the potential impact of the mine on the area.
Potter has been trying to educate other people in her community about the dangers presented by the mine but opines that although many not support it, they are afraid to speak out against it. “They may be afraid of being penalized at work or becoming targets in the community, “ she speculated.
The boardroom debate became heated when board member James Lambert complained that the camp was not about treaty rights but was in fact a protest against the mine. “I don’t consider this to be a treaty rights issue at all,” he interjected during the public hearing portion of the meeting.
Although the board charged the Forestry committee to work out a way for the camp to remain in the forest, it is unclear if such an arrangement is possible under current Wisconsin state statutes. Corporation counsel for the Iron County board Michael Pope expressed concern about ensuring that any agreements between the county and LCO tribe met with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approval. If the county does not conform to DNR statues, it runs the risk of losing financial support and grant monies administrated by the DNR.
Paul DeMain, spokesperson for the Harvest Camp was pleased with the county’s action and hopeful that the attorneys can arrive at a decision that both sides can agree on.
“This decision gets the issue back where it needs to be in order to find a middle ground,” he observed.
Joseph Pinardi, Iron County board chairman was clearly eager to get Iron County out of the national spotlight and return to “business as usual” as he described the work for the normally sparsely attended meetings in this small county.
He told a reporter that the controversy surrounding the Harvest Camp was “seriously blown out of proportion.”
The camp has become a political lightning rod and will continue to draw fire from both sides.
In June Wisconsin Rep. Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee) rallied fellow Republicans to introduce a bill into the state budget that would restrict public access to mining sites under the auspices of concern for public safety. He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that public access is already restricted from areas where mining is going on. “It just makes common sense,” he said.
The bill didn’t pass however because it was “too rushed” according to Honadel. He told the Daily Reporter, however, that the state assembly should act quickly to introduce a separate bill that restricts public access.
After visiting the Harvest Camp in July, however, state Senators Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) and Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) announced that they will introduce legislation to address workplace safety and ensure public access to open managed forest land. The proposed Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) mine is located on such land.
Public access and public gatherings have been a sore spot for the Gov. Scott Walker administration. Harkening back to the 1960’s Vietnam protests, groups have gathered in the capital rotunda daily to sing protest songs. The Solidarity Sing Alongs held at the capitol building in Madison protesting the Walker administration since 2011 have grown in size. In response, Walkers administration revised the buildings public access policy, requiring groups to get permits for organized activities. Last week, over a three-day period, police arrested nearly 100 people for singing in the capital rotunda including a mother who was led away in handcuffs as her young daughter stood by. Protesters were issued citations in the amount of $200.00.
The Walker administration described the sing-alongs as disruptive and claimed that the gatherings discouraged others from visiting the building. Protesters, however, maintain that it is their constitutional right to gather and petition their government. Earlier in July, a federal judge upheld Walkers change in access policy.
On July 30, Walker supporters occupied the capital rotunda leaving protesters to gather on the lawn outside the building. The Wisconsin State Journal described the gatherings as “dueling protests.”
Several opponents to the GTAC mine have also participated in the sing-alongs including Rebecca Kemble of The Progressive Magazine whose parents were arrested for their participation last week. Tom and Joan Kemble are 85 and 80 years old.
As for the Harvest Camp, it’s time to “hunker down” according to DeMain. Camp organizers will continue with their work of educating the public about the cultural and environment significance of the Penokee Hills and hope to expand to create a public market for Native artists. “If we build it, they will come,” DeMain said.
RELATED: Wisconsin Mining War
Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/01/fate-harvest-camp-postponed-considered-political-lightning-rod-150677
