Hi Folks~ The following is an excerpt of the withdrawl of Treaty statement from the Pine Ridge Reservation Lakota Sioux, presented to the State Department, last week. This group met for 3 years before coming up with this plan to Seceed from the US, as their own Soverign Nation. The Lakota, as an indigenous people have been involved in genocide, delivered by the US government. In fact their list of grim statistics, speaks for itself.
What we have here is *living history*, and an important historical moment & movement.
I hope we as a Nation pull together to support the rights of, and effort to seceed to become their own Soverign Nation.
African Apartheid, and the Civil Rights movements sucessfully made the needed social change for their freedom and well being. So I do hold strong hope that those whose whose cause is just, can prevail against overwhelming forces and odds.

In the face of the colonial apartheid conditions imposed on Lakota people, the withdrawal from the U.S. Treaties is necessary. These conditions have been devastating:
MORTALITY
Lakota men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
Lakota death rate is the highest in the United States.
The Lakota infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.
Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.

DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
More than half the Reservation's adults battle addiction and disease.
Alcoholism affects 8 in 10 families.

INCARCERATION
Indian children incarceration rate 40% higher than whites.
In South Dakota, 21 percent of state prisoners were Native.
Indians have the second largest state prison incarceration rate in the nation.

DISEASE
The Tuberculosis rate on Lakota reservations is approx 800% higher than the U.S national average.
Cervical cancer is 500% higher than the U.S national average.
The rate of diabetes is 800% higher than the U.S national average.
Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.

POVERTY
Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.
97% of our Lakota people live below the poverty line.
Many families cannot afford heating oil, wood or propane and many residents use ovens to heat their homes.

HOUSING
Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing).
1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage while 40% lack electricty.
60% of Reservation families have no telephone.
60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.
There is an estimated average of 17 people living in each family home (may only have two to three rooms). Some homes, built for 6 to 8 people, have up to 30 people living in them.

UNEMPLOYMENT
Unemployment rates on our reservations is 85% or higher.

THREATENED CULTURE
Only 14% of the Lakota population can speak Lakota language.
The language is not being shared inter-generationally, today, the average Lakota speaker is 65 years old.
Our Lakota language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.

After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative. That alternative is to bring freedom back into existence by taking it back - back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway. Canupa Gluha Mani

The Withdrawl Statement:

Lakotah Political and Diplomatic Relations with the United States of America

The first official contacts between Lakotah and the government of the United States of America began in earnest after the United States conducted a commercial transaction with France, commonly known as the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803. Prior to that time, Lakotah exercised complete and unfettered freedom and independence in their territory. According to the fantasy of United States’ history, the Louisiana Purchase was a purported sale by France to the United States of 530 million acres (2.1 million sq.km.) for $15 million. Part of this sale included the territory of Lakotah who, of course never had knowledge of, nor gave consent to, the sale of their national territory. The first treaty between the U.S. and any segment of Lakotah occurred in 1805, , and various other treaties of “peace and friendship,” between Lakotah and the U.S. As citizens of the U.S. began to invade and encroach on the territory of Lakotah in increasing numbers, tensions and violence erupted. To prevent full-scale war, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was requested by the U.S., to allow a transportation route through Lakotah territory. The treaty did not impair the sovereignty or the independence of Lakotah. In fact, the treaty expressly recognized Lakotah as an independent nation, and the treaty respected “all national business” of Lakotah. After repeated violations by the United States of the 1851 Treaty, warfare broke out between Lakotah and the U.S. Lakotah defeated the U.S. in the so-called “Red Cloud War,” leading to the U.S. to call for another treaty conference at Fort Laramie. The second treaty agreed for the U.S. to abandon the Bozeman Road, and the accompanying military forts that had been built along it, and promised to keep U.S. troops and settlers out of Lakotah territory. Almost immediately, the U.S. began violating terms of the treaty, allowing railroad and mining interests to trespass and steal Lakotah resources and territory. In 1874, the infamous U.S. military commander, George Custer, led an invasion of the most sacred part of Lakotah territory, the Paha Sapa (Black Hills), prompting an invasion of gold seekers, and provoking another war between the U.S. and Lakotah. As a result of the war, Lakotah territory was illegally occupied by the U.S., and billions of dollars of natural resources have been stolen from the occupied territories of Lakotah. The United States has engaged in multiple military, legal and political strategies for more than a century to deny Lakotah our right to freedom and self-determination. In 1876-77, in violations of the treaties that it had signed with Lakotah, the U.S. engaged in a sell-or-starve policy to coerce Lakotah to sell our national homeland. Lakotah refused, and has consistently refused to the present time. In 1871, the U.S. decided no longer to enter into treaties with indigenous nations, but the U.S. treaty-ending legislation made explicit that the new policy of the United States would in no way impair or limit those treaties already in force between indigenous nations and the U.S. Lakotah have consistently relied on the sanctity of the treaty between the U.S. and Lakotah. As mentioned above, the United States has consistently violated the treaties between Lakotah and the U.S., resulting in the loss of life, resources, and territory for Lakotah. Although the United States was willing to take the benefit of its bargain (i.e., territory and natural resources) in signing treaties with Lakotah, it was to respect the mutual bargain to the Lakotah. The U.S. began to use U.S. law and policy to attempt to diminish the political, economic and cultural freedom of Lakotah. After signing the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, the U.S. allowed its military, and its civilian citizens to invade Lakotah territory to steal gold, silver and other natural resources. The U.S. unilaterally violated the 1868 Treaty throughout the 1870s and 1880s by coercing alterations in the Treaty onto Lakotah, without the required 2/3 agreement of Lakotah, as required in the Treaty. Although the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the ongoing freedom and independence of Lakotah in the landmark case of Ex Parte Crow Dog (1883), two years later, the U.S. Congress attempted to steal Lakotah independence through the passage of the Major Crimes Act, that unilaterally extended U.S. criminal jurisdiction into Lakotah territory. These actions were followed by more arrogant actions of the United States, culminating in the shocking Supreme Court Case of Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903). Although Lone Wolf involved the Kiowa and Comanche Nations in what is now the State of Oklahoma, its impact adversely affected Lakotah. In Lone Wolf, the United States not only said that it could violate, change or abrogate treaties with Indian nations unilaterally, but it also said that the U.S. Congress possesses plenary (absolute) power to legislate in any way in indigenous affairs without the consent or consideration of indigenous nations. By extension, Lone Wolf has been used to violate hundreds of treaties between the U.S. and indigenous peoples, including Lakotah. Through the operation of Lone Wolf, the U.S. stole the sacred Black Hills, allowed the mining of billions of dollars of gold from them, admitted that the Black Hills were taken in violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, and then offered to compensate Lakotah at 1874 land values. Lakotah have, to this day, rejected the offer of payment, and continue to insist on the return of the Paha Sapa (Black Hills). An overview of violations follows: • Homestead Acts • Allotment Acts • Citizenship Act forcing United States citizenship upon all American Indians • Indian Reorganization Act a.k.a. Howard Wheeler Act (the first Apartheid Act) • Forced relocation during the decades of the 1950's over the 1960's. • Supreme Court decision disallowing our religions. • Even though we are citizens of the United States of America, we are denied protections of the United States Constitution while living on Indian reservations, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The operation of the United States in the nefarious ways outlined above are a violation, not only of the sovereignty and independence of Lakotah, not only of the solemn treaty signed between the U.S. and Lakotah, but it is a violation of the fundamental law of the United States itself. Article Six of the United States Constitution explicitly states that treaties signed by the United States are the supreme law of the land, and must be respected by every court and by every lawmaker, as such.

Read more about it here:
http://www.lakotafreedom.com/index.html

Wonderful news for those 65 or older
From Demeur

We Are Doomed
From The Raver for RaveFilmsKC

Grrrrrr
From JJ for Unrepentant Old Hippie

Back in the early 90's, before we had Teh Terraists, we had Evil Dog Breeds that wanted to Kill Your Family. Pitbulls, Rotties, Dobies, even German Shepherds, and especially the exotic wolf hybrid were all potential Canine Terrorists. The media routinely jumped on the Bad Dog Bandwagon, running liver-quivering accounts of babies torn asunder by Evil Al-Canida operatives.

I used to raise wolf hybrids back then, a pursuit which entailed (for me, anyway) optimizing my knowledge of both domestic dogs and wolves, and I came to realize that even in the late-20th century, there was a mindblowing amount of dark-ages bullshit floating around about wolves (and by proxy, wolf hybrids). One thing wolves rarely if ever do is attack humans -- certainly they do it a lot less than the aforementioned domestic dog breeds. So this is the kind of hysteria-mongering news story that used to drive me apeshit because it contributed to negative wolf mythology (and made my neighbours give me weird looks): "Family dog saves children from wolves"... SHRIEEEK!

"With their protruding rib cages and shrunken bodies, there was no question the wolves were hungry.

Shadow saw them almost immediately; the children and their parents didn't.

In the dusky northern light three days before Christmas, two Fort Nelson families came dangerously close to two hungry wolves, until the family dog, Shadow, narrowly averted disaster.

The wolves appeared quietly at about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 22, as darkness was creeping in on the winter wonderland 100 kilometres east of Fort Nelson, where the families were tobogganing.

About 30 metres away, a sleighful of three children - one aged four and the others aged three - were being happily towed along the base of a hill by an all-terrain vehicle." [...]

Okay, right here I'd suggest that towing kids on a toboggan with an ATV probably puts them in more danger than any wolf. So Teh Stupid in this story starts with humans who've become so fucking lazy that they can't pull a sled themselves like my parents did. But anyway...

"Father Kyle Keays was oblivious to the danger until he suddenly heard his wife's shriek from the top of the hill.

Shadow, their Rottweiler-cross, had broken from the grasp of Keays' wife and was bounding down the hill toward the wolves, who were moving in toward the children.

"I looked back and saw my dog intercept the lead wolf - there were two of them. They were heading towards the kids and the dog came in," said 36-year-old Keays, who was riding on a separate ATV.

Being too far from the children, Keays headed to his nearby work camp to grab a rifle." [...]

"Keays, a licensed hunter, followed the tracks, found the wolf about 300 metres away and shot her."

And they all lived happily ever after! (Except for the wolves, whose hides will probably soon grace this guy's living room wall.)

What the wolves were really up to is debatable -- if they were that thin and only travelling in a pair, they might well have been looking for food. But it's highly unlikely they were "stalking" the kids -- probably they were just hoping to find something tasty amid the garbage that humans inevitably leave in their wake. Whatever they were doing, if their presence was upsetting these human interlopers, one would think the idea of leaving the area might have occurred to someone? Nah, no need to be inconvenienced, just shoot whatever's bothering you, problem solved. Jerks!

OpEdNews-Home  for Ron Paul supporters?
From Dusty for It's My Right to Be Left of the Center

Seems it has become just that over there. Check out this new post about Paul. It does NOT contain any references or support links for all the verbage spewed on behalf of Ron Paul..interesting no? So I supported my pov on Paul with links in my comment there, which I will post here:

Facts about Ron Paul

His voting record shows he votes with the Repub party line 75% of the time. Source: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/p000583/

Key Votes and Paul's vote on those, if he voted at all:

Vote 40: H R 6: This bill would repeal tax cuts to oil companies and mandate that they pay a fee to remove oil from the Gulf of Mexico. It would also fund renewable energy programs. The act would repeal a tax break that oil and gas firms received in 2004. That break effectively lowered their corporate tax rates. It would also bar oil companies from bidding on new federal leases unless they pay a fee or renegotiate improperly drafted leases from the late '90s. Those leases did not require royalty payments on Gulf of Mexico oil production. Oil firms would pay a "conservation fee" for oil taken from the gulf.-Paul voted NO on this one along the Repub party line

Vote 18: H R 2: This bill would increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour over two years..-Paul voted NO on this along the (R) party line

Vote 135: H R 4297: Extended the Bush tax cuts.-Paul voted yes along the (R) party line

Vote 6: H RES 5: Instituted a number of changes in the ethics rules that govern the conduct of individual members of Congress.-Paul voted NO along the (R) party line

Ron Paul has missed 315 votes (27.2%) during the current Congress.  Source: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/p000583/

Ronald Paul has sponsored 350 bills since Jan 7, 1997, of which 345 haven't made it out of committee (Extremely Poor) and 0 were successfully enacted. Source: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400311

His voting record sucks, his bill sponsorship sucks and his environmental support sucks..a real good candidate for anyone that supports Big Oil, wants a President that can't get anything done or one who won't show up for work over a quarter of the time.

WIt's Five Minutes To Midnight
From Mary Ellen for The Divine Democrat

No, you didn't oversleep and almost miss New Year's Day, I'm talking about the Doomsday Clock. This isn't new information, the change in the clock from 7 minutes to midnight in 2002 to the current 5 minutes to midnight happened in January of 2007. However while I was reading the Chicago Tribune this morning there was an article that was buried back on page 18 that would have been front page headlines back in the 50's and early 60's.

NEW LONG-RANGE MISSILE FIRED IN TEST. That was a small headline on the left side of the page next to an after Christmas sale. The article goes on to say that "Russia's military on Tuesday successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads--a weapon intended to replace Soviet-era missiles."

I'm still trying to figure out why this seems to be of little concern to Americans? Is it because I grew up in the era of the cold war with Russia and the Cuban missile crisis that it is a concern to me and not others? It certainly seems that George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice were successful in their bid to scare the right wingers and Congress right out of their tiny brains with images of mushroom clouds when talking about fairy tale WMD in Iraq, how is this any different?

The article goes on to say, "The RS-24 missile was launched from the Plesetsk launch site in northern Russia, and its test warheads successfully hit designated targets on the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula about 4,340 miles east," (emphasis mine).

When the Doomsday Clock was moved to five minutes before midnight, the Board Statement which explained the move said this;

"Even at the height of the Cold War, President Kennedy worried about U.S. allies’ acquisition of nuclear weapons technology. In recent years, however, the United States appears focused on denying nuclear weapons only to its adversaries, while accommodating its friends. Yet, as history demonstrates, countries that are deemed allies can quickly become adversaries. And the success of the illicit, Pakistan-based nuclear procurement network, which extended into Europe, shows how even friendly governments can fail to guard against the theft and smuggling of sensitive nuclear technology."

We all know that George Bush looked into the soul of Vladimir Putin and saw that he was a "good man", but we must also remember that George may be comparing Putin's soul to his, and to be honest, I think using his own soul as a comparison isn't a great starting point.

The story about Russia's recent long-range missile test story, there is a story printed by Reuters/ India today that stated,

"TEHRAN (Reuters) - Russia has agreed to sell an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Iran's defense minister was quoted as saying on Wednesday, a report likely to irritate the United States.

[snip]

Najjar said last month Iran would never launch an attack against another country but warned that anybody trying to invade Iran would "face a crushing response".

Under Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian arms firms have aggressively pushed sales abroad as the Kremlin seeks to reassert its role as a global power in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

When playing games like Chess or Risk, you have to plan an effective strategy to win. Looking at Bush's "strategy" is like looking into the mind of a toddler who can only see or think of the immediate future. Toddlers don't have long term plans or strategies. Bush made up his mind (or someone made it up for him, I should say), before being elected, to go to war with Iraq. He didn't have a plan or a strategy. There were no exit plans, he didn't think the war would last for more than a few months, etc. Since he was so wrong on every single aspect of this war, our military and its equipment has been depleted, our national debt has skyrocketed, our economy is floundering, and we are being sucked into the black hole of this war in the Middle East. What is his next "winning strategy" in the face of all these failures? Go to war with Iran.

Now let's look at Russia's response to Bush's failed strategies. They are increasing their military size and updating all their equipment. I wrote in a post last October that U.S. intelligence estimates that Russia now spends as much on its military as China, which has also raised alarms with its build-up.

Back in August, Russian Tupolev-95 bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, buzzed an American military base as they flew over the Pacific island of Guam. Although, initially, the U.S. denied the reports, when actual video was shown, they acknowledged that it did happen.

Of course, there is absolutely nothing that Bush could do about Russia's friendship with Iran or any other country for that matter. Bush is good at trying to bully small countries who don't have a nuclear bomb, not so good at dealing with those who already have it.

Will the Doomsday Clock move up another minute or more because of the missile test in Russia? That depends,if they are looking for this news in the media, they'll have to do some digging. I have the feeling this bit of info isn't going to make it into Bush's future State of the Union addresses and I'm doubly sure that no one in the White House briefing room will ask Dana Perino about it, they're too busy worrying if they'll be asked to the next private briefing with King George to step on any toes.

I can only close with this...when you are doing your countdown to midnight on New Year's Eve, reach over to your spouse, girlfriend, family member or friend and give them a great big hug, who knows how many of those we'll have left if we don't get Pelosi to put impeachment back on the table?