Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

February 19, 2012

Media Watch: The good, the bad and the ugly, Feb. 19, 2012

Gwich'in Sarah James battling to
protect the caribou during the
Cancun climate summit.
Photo Brenda Norrell.
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Media promotion of destruction of Mother Earth
While many traditional grassroots Native Americans sacrifice to halt the destruction on their lands, and protect Mother Earth, tribal elected leaders were in Washington last week pushing for more mining and destruction. The majority of the media tells their one-sided story, without quoting Native Americans protecting the land.
Among those pressing for more energy development: Navajo Nation, Southern Ute and Fort Peck in Montana: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/02/16/tribes-back-bill-to-ease-federal-oversight-of-indian-land-energy-projects
In related news, the US House passed a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which Native Americans oppose. The new House bill approves expanding oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the homelands of the caribou which Gwich’in are fighting to protect.
The media fell for a scam this week, a ploy by Arizona Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain to steal Navajo water rights to the Little Colorado River. The paternalistic senators offered Navajos on Black Mesa a trickle of water to give up their water rights to the Little Colorado.
In other news, the hacked e-mails of Mexico's Camimex mining industry reveal Mexico targeting the sacred lands of the Wixarika, Huicholes, with silver mining. Further, the e-mails reveal the efforts in Mexico to manipulate climate change facts so that coal and other dirty industries could avoid taxation in Mexico.
See articles on grassroots Native Americans struggle to protect Mother Earth, and end the destruction, and the Camimex e-mails at Censored News http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

AP exposes New York police spying on students, Muslims, whitewater rafters
AP in the west often fails human rights activists. However, AP’s Chris Hawley exposes the New York Police Department spying on Muslims in the Northeast. It reveals how police infiltrate student organizations, and even go whitewater rafting with students to spy them.
Muslim students across Northeast monitored by NYPD
By CHRIS HAWLEY, Associated Press
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i8-1HKW_EexxXiQ-9atQirlNU3Ew?docId=a6d3d91ee3ce47adba87959643181c5c

Tucson TV station promotes militarization of high school students, while district bans Mexican American studies and Chicano and Native American books
One Tucson television station’s promotion of ROTC in a local high school reveals how the militarization of youths in the schools is aided by the media.
The Tucson Unified School voted to forbid Mexican American Studies and banned Chicano and Native American books in January. The vote came after Arizona school superintendent John Huppenthal threatened the district with the loss of millions of dollars in funding if the district did not forbid the program. The issue has been a focus in national news.
What did Channel 9, KGUN TV, focus on, and promote, in Saturday night’s broadcast? ROTC and its 200 ROTC students at one of the high schools. It reveals the role of the media in the militarization of schools, and the misconception that it is better to send young people off to fight and die in bogus wars, than provide them with a real education, so they can set their sights on jobs and hope.
Further, military recruiters in Tucson high schools were arrested in a sting operation for drug smuggling in 2006. So many Army, AirForce and Marine soldiers wanted to smuggle cocaine from Nogales to Phoenix, that Operation Lively Green was halted after nearly 100 arrests.


Whistleblower's Conference in Berkeley, Nov. 17 -- 19, 2012
http://www.freshjuiceparty.com/occupy-the-truth-whistleblower-conference-feb-17-to-19/

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