Idle No More

Idle No More reverberates with echoes from Martin Luther King and the civil righrs movement.  A commonter noted on January 9, 2013 that Idle No More began as a response to a government action - a fact that is often missed.

What is obvious from much of the coverage and commentary is that the issue of Bill C-45 has been lost in the fray. It was this omnibus bill that started the demonstrations not just because of what it purports to achieve, but because of the way it was introduced without adequate consultation with First Nation groups. Idle No More did not start in a vacuum. It started in response to Bill C-45, which is the catalyst behind this.  http://www.guelphmercury.com/opinion/columns/article/866071--there-s-lots-of-confusion-about-bill-c-45-and-the-idle-no-more-movement

Why the protests?  Why not work through negotiation?  Through the AFN - quietly - without all this fuss?  As Martin Luther King commented in 1963, no privileged group gives up its privilege voluntarily.

 My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.  http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
 

One group that has voluntarily declared its intention to abrogate its prvilege is the Jewish Voice for Peace.

Jewish Voice for Peace affirms its support for the Canadian indigenous rights movement known as Idle No More. In November, Chief Theresa Spence of the Attawapiskat First Nation began a 42-day hunger strike in response to legislation threatening First Nations' treaties and rights to natural resources. In the months since, Idle No More has become a global solidarity movement affirming indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, with hundreds of rallies around the world. Idle No More has shed light on shared struggles against colonialism, including the Palestinian struggle. In December, Palestinian activists released a statement of solidarity, committing to honor the leadership of women and youth and to "stand with all liberation movements challenging colonialism and imperialism around the world." As American Jews, we recognize that our escape from oppression reinforced the theft of indigenous lands, both in Palestine and in the Americas. Today, we still benefit from colonial privileges: as diaspora Jews we may immigrate to Israel at any time, while Palestinian refugees are denied entry.Instead of surviving through the oppression of others, we seek to unite with colonized and oppressed peoples in demanding sovereignty for all indigenous peoples. We call on the governments of the United States, Canada and Israel to recognize the suffering inflicted by ongoing annexation of indigenous land, knowing that justice for colonized people means a safer, more sustainable world for all  
http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/jvp-statement-on-idle-no-more-movement
 

Environmental activists should abrogate their privilige as well - and work with Idle No More.  As Elizabeth May states, we need meaningful engagement on environmental and other issues.  

The #idlenomore campaign has my full support.  ....we need a meaningful engagement on the wide range of critical issues being raised from coast to coast to coast. For that we need leadership, and right now, that leadership is coming from flash-mobs of drummers and blockaders, aboriginal women and youth.  http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/7/2012-12-28/hunger-strikes
 

Find a local movment at http://idlenomore.ca/

 

Interview With Elizabeth May

http://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/01/elizabeth-may-interview

MD: You once told me that very few environmental organizations really understand political power and only a handful ever even lobby a cabinet minister or politician. Has that changed at all in terms of the role they need to play and could play if they are going to change things?

EM: I have a terrible feeling of a weakening of resolve in the movement though I am not involved much any more as I am doing my environmental advocacy in a different way now. And for good reasons they don't share things with me for fear of being partisan.  But the environmental movement is changing a lot because there's the establishment groups which have big infrastructure and tend to be vested in saying that something (like Copenhagen) is a success even if it's not. But what's new is the strength of the youth climate movement which doesn't have that same problem and the 350.org movement which is almost entirely viral and they're not going to fall for safe targets and not-good-enough positions.

Only  a handful of  envirornmental activists have every lobbied a cabinet minster or politician?  Or really understand political power ??? WHAT ?  Perhaps we better learn - quickly - in order to create meaningful change.

Climategate Discussed

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/1215/Climategate-global-warming-and-the-tree-rings-divergence-problem/%28page%29/3
Much discussion of the Climategate e-mails has centered on "tricking" tree ring data that may not confirm global warming. What's the divergence of data all about and does it really confirm cooling instead of warming? In other words, tree growth may have slowed because the amount of sunlight reaching trees, which is especially critical to growth at high latitudes, has diminished since the mid-20th century.  If global dimming is a major factor in the divergence of the past 50 years, should we expect to see the opposite of divergence — realignment? — now that the skies are cleaner?

D'Arrigo responds: "I think this would be difficult to detect and tease apart due to the many competing factors potentially impacting tree growth – hard to separate this type of effect from other environmental factors but an intriguing possibility."

Elizabeth May read all ten years of hacked emails: please have a look at her blog for her conclusions. She doesn't decide global warming is fake.  She concludes that scientists involved were cogitating about problems such as the tree ring issue above ... NOT plotting to deceive the world about climate change.

http://www.desmogblog.com/climatespin-using-stolen-emails-cripple-policy

An independent analysis of the emails, however, show that they did not, in any way, undermine the scientific foundation for our understanding of how and why the climate is changing. Even Hayward acknowledges that "Climate change is a genuine phenomenon, and there is a nontrivial risk of major consequences in the future."

I keep wondering who funded the hack.......

Munk Debate Tomorrow: December 1, 2009

http://www.munkdebates.com/
C02 levels in the atmosphere are climbing steadily higher. Some believe this is having a devastating effect on humans and nature, while others argue that the threat has been overstated. Is this the moment for a bold international treaty to curb carbon emissions? Or, are the social and economic costs of reducing C02 emissions too high in world where a billion people live on a dollar or less a day?

Just days before the United Nation’s historic Copenhagen summit the Munk Debates will tackle one of the great public policy questions of our time: how should the world respond to climate change?
Elizabeth May, George Monbiot, Bjorn Lomborg  and  Nigel Lawson will debate climate change.

Sign up for a FREE webcast  on December 1, 2009 at the above site: look for the Webcast Signup icon.

It should be interesting.....
UPDATE:  You can still view the debate via a podcast from the above site.