(Editor’s note: we realize the issues addressed by the article are hardly unique to Trump and his administration but as they are the puppets currently in power, their actions and those of their controllers should be of primary concern.)
By Robert J. Burrowes
It is already clearly apparent, as many predicted, that Donald Trump’s
election as president of the United States would signal the start of
what might be the final monumental assault on much of what is good in
our world. Whatever our collective gains to date to create a world in
which peace, social justice and environmental sustainability ultimately
prevail for all of Earth’s inhabitants, we stand to lose it all in the
catastrophic sequence of events that Trump is now initiating with those
who share his delusional worldview.
Why does Trump ignore overwhelming scientific evidence (for example, in
relation to the climate) and want to ‘lock out’ people who are desperate
to improve their lives? Why does he want to prepare for and threaten
more war and even nuclear war?
But why is Trump ‘dangerously mentally ill’ and violent?
For the same reason that any person, whether in the Trump administration
or not, ends up in this state: it is an outcome of the ‘visible’,
‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that they suffered during
childhood and which unconsciously determines virtually everything they
now do. In brief, Trump is utterly terrified and full of self-hatred but
projects this as terror and hatred of women, migrants, Muslims… and this
makes him behave insanely. For a brief explanation, see ‘The Global Elite is Insane‘. For a more comprehensive explanation of why many human beings are violent, see ‘Why Violence?‘ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘.
So what are we to do? Well, if you are inclined to resist the diabolical
actions of Donald Trump (and his insane and violent equivalents in the
United States and other countries around the world), I invite you to
respond powerfully. This includes maintaining a large measure of empathy
for the emotionally damaged individual who is now president of the US
(and his many equivalents). It also includes recognizing that this
individual and his equivalents are the current ‘face’ of a global system
of violence and exploitation built on many long-standing structures that
we must systematically dismantle.
Here are some options for resisting and rebuilding, depending on your
circumstances.
If you wish to strike at the core of human violence, consider modifying
your treatment of children in accordance with the suggestions in the
article ‘My Promise to Children‘.
If you wish to simultaneously tackle all military, climate and
environmental threats to human existence while rebuilding human
societies in ways that enhance individual empowerment and community
self-reliance, consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth‘.
If you wish to resist particular elite initiatives that threaten peace,
justice and environmental sustainability, consider planning, organizing
and implementing nonviolent strategies to do so. But I wish to emphasize
the word ‘strategies’. There is no point taking piecemeal measures or
organizing one-off events, no matter how big, to express your concern.
If you don’t plan, organize and act strategically, you will have wasted
your time and effort on something that has no impact. Remember 15
February 2003? Up to thirty million people in over 600 cities around the
world participated in rallies against the war on Iraq in what some
labeled ‘the largest protest event in human history’. Did it stop the
war?
So if you are inclined to respond powerfully by planning a nonviolent
strategy for your campaign, you might be interested in the Nonviolent
Strategy Wheel and other strategic thinking on this website – Nonviolent
Campaign Strategy – or the parallel one: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.
And if you wish to join the worldwide movement to end violence in all of
its forms, you might also be interested in signing the online pledge of
‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.
Donald Trump has formidable institutional power at his disposal and he
and his officials will use it to inflict enormous damage on us and our
world in the months ahead.
What most people do not realize is that we have vastly greater power at
our disposal to stop him and the elite and their institutions he
represents. But we need to deploy our power strategically if we are to
put this world on a renewed trajectory to peace, justice and
sustainability.
Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ His email address is flametree@riseup.netand his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com
Robert J. Burrowes P.O. Box 68 Daylesford Victoria 3460 Australia Email: flametree@riseup.net
This Thanksgiving, join me in celebrating but not in the traditional way you’re used to celebrating. In the video below, I suggest 2 ways of celebrating with The Standing Rock Sioux Nation, The Water Protectors and The Oceti Sakowin to show unity and solidarity.
You can express outrage and demand cessation by calling any and all of the numbers below:
White House Situation Room – 202-456-9431
I was told they’re “monitoring the situation.” I asked that the White House actually intervene on behalf of water protectors.
Morton County Sherriff Department – 701-328-8118
I left a voicemail saying I’d encourage no one to ever visit North Dakota ever again if they keep attacking unarmed citizens.
Governor Dalrymple – 701-328-8118
Voicemail full; I was unable to leave a message
North Dakota National Guard – 701-333-2000
No answer outside of business hours
Army Corps of Engineers – 202-761-8700
I left a voicemail asking that they please take any and every action to ensure (1) no further harm to water protectors and (2) DAPL stop efforts to drill, for benefit of this land and all its people.
Please call. Please protest the abuse of people and earth for profit.
The urban legend about Thanksgiving is that the Native Americans helped save the Pilgrims who had a rough start to their settlements. Once they had a bountiful harvest they invited their Native neighbors over for a nice dinner party to give thanks to them and to God. That story has been soundly refuted by actual accounts of the day, but for reasons passing in understanding, we still celebrate the holiday as we perceive it went down.
After that, however, the friendly relationship between Natives and white settlers was over, and what followed was 300 years of some of the most heartbreaking and disgraceful actions the United States has ever committed.
A Proclamation was signed by King George III of England in 1763, prohibiting any English settlers from pushing further west than the Appalachian Mountains and anyone already there would be required to move back east. Even across the ocean the King knew there were tensions between Natives and settlers. Unfortunately, the King had no real way of enforcing it and 13 years later the Colonies filed the Declaration of Independence and the war with England was on.
One of the worst and most disgusting things happened in the 1829 decision by the Supreme Court in Johnson v. M’Intosh. The court ruled that the U.S. Government could sell Native American land to non-Native people out from under the tribes. Believe it or not, they were actually trying to.
The decision began a set of rulings under the Marshall Court that outlined what is now referred to as the “Doctrine of Discovery.” It’s basically a set of western laws that “allowed” the legal framework to take land from aboriginals living on it because it was “discovered” by a European Christian monarchs. The logical conclusion that you can’t discover something if someone already lives there was basically thrown out thanks to the Marshall Court.
Who knows why they even bothered with the paperwork, it isn’t like they were going to be stopped anyway.
2. Andrew Jackson
“This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws…” – President Andrew Jackson, State of the Union 1829
On May 26, 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which gave the power to the President to “negotiate” the removal of all Native Americans and force them West of the Mississippi River. Jackson signed it into law and the farce of “negotiations” began.
In 1831, Georgia tried to pass a law that prevented Native Americans from being within the borders of their state. In 1833, Florida actually passed the same law. The Cherokees took Georgia to court and demanded an injunction to prevent the forced removal of the tribe from the state. In Cherokee v. Georgia The Supreme Court ruled that the tribal lands were not sovereign and were essentially a ward of the federal government.
But one year later in Worcester v. Georgia, a missionary working on Cherokee lands was arrested. He sued the State of Georgia claiming that the state had no legal authority on Native soil, that they were sovereign lands. The Supreme Court ruled that the tribes were sovereign and that Georgia had no legal authority.
You would have thought that the 1832 legal battle would have been the major way that the tribes were saved from governments violating laws and treaties left and right, but no. Jackson proposed to the Cherokees Tribe that they move to Oklahoma (then called Indian Territory). The Cherokee said no.
Natives were considered savages when they fought back against the government attempting to steal their land, kill their people and force them to move. Those that were marched to what is now Oklahoma were considered the “5 Civilized Tribes” because they didn’t fight back the way many others did. They agreed to assimilate into some white culture for fear of being killed by the government.
But the U.S. government took it a step further when they started opening up boarding schools where Native children were sent and taught how to be Christian, relinquish their heritage, forget their traditions and act more “white.”
Richard Pratt was an Army Officer when he began building the schools that would teach Native children. He said he developed the idea while in “an Indian prison.” His philosophy, he described, was simple “Kill the Indian … Save the Man.” By killing the Native American traditions and upbringing in children, they hoped to begin ridding the country of what they considered to be the “savage” behavior.
Many of these children encountered what can only be described as abuse. They were beaten and put in isolation until they’d submit to the ways of white people.
4. Broken Treaties
Over 500 treaties were made with Native American tribes over the last several hundred years and over 370 of which had to do with land. All were broken or changed.
As CJ says in the video “How do you keep fighting these smaller injustices when they’re all from the mother of injustices?”
5. Murder
USA Committed Genocide Against Native Americans
Published on May 5, 2012
MICHAEL MOORE: It’s not envy, it’s war, and it is a class war, and it’s a war that has been perpetrated by the rich on to everybody else. I mean, the class war is one they started. The mistake they’ve made, just to deal with the racial part of this, is their boot has been on the necks of people of color since we began. This is a nation founded on genocide and built, built on the backs of slaves. Alright?
So, so we started with a racial problem. We went, we tried to actually eliminate one entire race, and then we used another race to build this country actually quite quickly as a new country into a world power. This country never would have had the wealth that it had had it not had slavery for a couple of hundred years. If it had had, if it had had to pay people, if it actually had to pay people to build America, you know, we might just be at that point in Utah where we’re joining the two rails together maybe at this point right now.
From the moment that Columbus “discovered” a place that already existed, Native Americans began to die. Whether from “Old World” diseases like small pox and measles, battles with government soldiers or outright murder, the population declined by 96 percent.
American historian David Stannard argued in his book American Holocaust that the annihilation of the Native Americans from 76 million on both American continents to just a quarter-million “in a string of genocide campaigns,” that killed “countless tens of millions” was by far the largest genocide in world history.
Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, wrote to Colonel Henry Bouquet at Fort Pitt:
“You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians [with smallpox] by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method, that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.”
The intentional use of “germ warfare” to “extirpate this execrable race” is nothing more than brutal, hateful and horrific mass murder. Our country should be ashamed.
Even hundreds of years later, tribes are still fighting many of these same battles. Just last month, the federal government raided a Native American university that was growing a legal hemp crop as part of a pilot project under the Farm Bill.
What we owe the Native Americans is a more complicated question, but for sure it begins with a greater respect and extends well beyond the limited reparations we’ve given them over the years. Perhaps it begins with the reclaiming of holidays like Columbus Day and Thanksgiving which have done nothing but perpetuate stereotypes and gloss over the history of violence and broken promises.
American Indian Activist Russell Means Powerful Speech, 1989
Published on Oct 22, 2013
Legendary Russell Means harshly criticizes the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian leadership of reservations. One of a kind, RIP November 10, 1939 — October 22, 2012
Russell was an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of American Indian people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organization in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage.
Russell Means has lived a life like few others in this century — revered for his selfless accomplishments and remarkable bravery. He was born into a society and guided by a way of life that gently denies the self in order to promote the survival and betterment of family and community. His culture is driven by tradition, which at once links the past to the present.
Russell Means was once called the “biggest, baddest, meanest, angriest, most famous American Indian activist of the late 20th century.”
He led a 71-day armed standoff in 1973 against federal agents at Wounded Knee, a tiny hamlet in the heart of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.
It is considered to be one of his most famous act of defiance, however, occurred at Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973. Responding to the numerous murders perpetrated by puppet tribal governments and the extreme conditions of oppression, the takeover at Wounded Knee revisited the sight of the American Indian massacre at the hands of U.S. soldiers in 1890.
Ever vigilant for his cause, Russell has been lauded by the international community for his tireless efforts.
Later, he used film as a vehicle for his advocacy, thus enabling him to use different means to communicate his vital truths. Through the power of media, his vision was to create peaceful and positive images celebrating the magic and mystery of his American Indian heritage.
In contemplating the fundamental issues about the world in which we live, he was committed to educating all people about our most crucial battle-the preservation on the earth.
Means joined “The Longest Walk” in 1978 to protest a new tide of anti-Indian legislation including the forced sterilization of Indian women. Following the walk, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution saying that national policy was to protect the rights of Indians, “to believe, express and exercise their traditional religions, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.”
Russell Means has been called the most famous American Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse by the Los Angeles Times and recognized as a natural leader with a fearless dedication and indestructible sense of pride.
He took pride in having instituted programs for the betterment of his people: notable, the Porcupine Health Clinic (the only non government funded clinic in Indian Country) and KILI radio, the first Indian owned radio station.
Today, one of his principle goals has been the establishment of a “Total Immersion School”, which is based on a concept created by the Maori people of New Zealand, where children are immersed in the language, culture, science, music and storytelling of their own people.
Russell wanted to adapt this total immersion concept to the Indian way of life and philosophy which is taught from a perspective that will nurture a new generation of proud children educated in the context of their own heritage.
Russell Means has devoted his life to eliminating racism of any kind, and in so doing he leaves a historical imprint as the most revolutionary Indian leader of the late twentieth century.
Russell’s commitment to uplift the plight of his people escalated when he served as director of Cleveland’s American Indian Center.
It was there he met Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, and embarked upon a relationship that would rocket them both into national prominence.
“If I want my people to be free, Americans have to be free.” –Russell Means
‘America is a stolen country’
Published on Jan 2, 2015
Alcoholism, unemployment and suicide are problems associated with Native American reservations in the US. But a new generation of young activists are dedicating themselves to a brighter future. Benjamin Zand from the BBC’s Pop-Up team is on a reservation in South Dakota — in the heart of America’s midwest.
Right now, here today, our Native American brothers & sisters are being persecuted for being who they are.
the police started a prairie fire & have been spraying water on the protectors(its winter), tear gas, rubber bullets.
The treatment of the Native American Tribes who are standing united to protect THEIR Tribal lands, THEIR drinking water supply AND THEIR sacred burial grounds, are unacceptable, disgusting, disappointing and inhumane.
It’s time we stand united with The Native American Tribal Nations. It’s time we stop celebrating Thanksgiving, a racists holiday that actually celebrates the massacre and genocide of 100 MILLION indigenous people.
People Of Color all over The United States Of America should unite and stop celebrating a holiday that glorifies the massacre of human life.
Water Protectors. Black Friday. Charity. Kindness. Focus. Action.
Published on Nov 21, 2016
Welcome to My Monday morning rants, raves & concerns. This voice video contains My thoughts on a plethora of issues, all current events and subjects we SHOULD ALL be pondering.
After the Crash 