Never Idle: Gord Hill on Indigenous Resistance in Canada

March 18, 2013

Editorial: A People’s Movement | Idle No More

Intercontinental Cry

By Jay Taber

Jan 15, 2013

In my recent editorial Anticipating Reaction, I listed some books that Idle No More activists and their supporters might find useful. One of those seemed particularly relevant to Canada’s current First Nations rebellion.

In James Forman’s 1997 book The Making of Black Revolutionaries, the former organizer of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) — that led the sit-ins against American apartheid, and risked their lives in support of Black communities in Mississippi Freedom Summer — recalled the challenges of working with the established Black elites of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) who wanted to control the activists. →

Peaceful Protests Profit from History of Militant Resistance | Idle No More

 

Another excellent analysis of the Idle No More movement by Zig Zag …

 

January 12, 2013

by Zig Zag

Warrior Publications

Warrior at Oka, 1990, standing on top of abandoned & over turned police car.

“Unbelievable how chicken the police are to remove these people from blocking the railway. If it was anybody but natives they would have been arrested a week ago.”

Letter posted by Gerry, Jan 2, 2013, “First Nation blockade in Sarnia coming down,” Canadian Press, Jan 2, 2013

Any time there is a significant Native blockade or occupation, there are demands for its immediate removal by angry citizens. During Oka, 1990, and Six Nations 2006, for example, mobs of non-Natives rallied and sometimes rioted demanding that the military intervene to end the disputes. →

EDITORIAL: Asymmetrical Warfare

By Jay Taber

Jan 13, 2013

Intercontinental Cry

There was no illusion of collaboration between Ottawa and the Assembly of First Nations on Friday. AFN is wholly dependent on Ottawa for its existence. They are collaborators by colonial design. They may see themselves as making the best of a bad situation, but they are not challenging the system of dominion. →

Indigenous Grassroots & the Indian Act Band Council

by Zig Zag

Warrior Publications

January 7, 2013

“Consequently, the leadership of grassroots movements should not be vested in elites or individuals, but rather arise from the the community itself. It is the community members who should meet, discuss, and decide on their course of action. This decision-making power should never be delegated to others, for then the very purpose of grassroots mobilizing would be lost.”

Debates arising from the recent Idle No More movement have revealed two main interpretations of what comprises the grassroots.  One seeks to exclude band councils, while the other views chiefs & councillors as an integral part of the grassroots, simply by virtue of them being members of the community.  Clearly, we need some basic understanding of what constitutes the grassroots in order to advance our movement. →

Idle No More Movement Urged to Remain Grassroots Ahead of Jan 11 Protests

Indigenous Masculinity and Warriorism

Intercontinental Cry

By Jay Taber

Dec 29, 2012

The warrior spirit is a vastly misunderstood and misconstrued calling. As the voice of the protector, its authenticity is distorted by militarists and pacifists alike. Those who heed the call in today’s world of warped values and political illiteracy must be prepared to deal with both ignorance and ingratitude. →

Indigenous Resistance in Canada

Intercontinental Cry

By Jay Taber

Dec 24, 2012

While the non-violent direct action of First Nations currently has broad support across Canada, the history of indigenous resistance in Canada shows that the only time Ottawa has taken First Nations seriously is when faced with economic disruption, civil disobedience or armed self-defense. As First Nations organize in opposition to the Canadian government’s current agenda to terminate their human rights and the environmental protection of Canada’s land and waters, they would do well to reexamine their own history, and how they got where they are today. Aiding them in that effort is associate professor Glen Coulthard, a Yellowknives Dene instructor in the First Nations  Studies Program at the University of British Columbia. →

Why Militant Direct Action? Because IT WORKS!

August 10, 2012

Dr Steve Best

Yet another concession from the vivisection-industrial complex that militant direct action (MDA) tactics (liberation, sabotage, and intimidation) have been all too effective weapons against them. As reported in the UK blog, Animal Warfare:

“An article in the Guardian about 2 activists convicted of peaceful protest and free expression reveal some interesting admissions from those inside the vivisection industry – old school animal rights tactics work! While many peoples response will be ‘no shit’, it is a point worth re-emphasising as the movement becomes increasingly pacifistic in the UK.

The Guardian reports that `In 1981 there were 34 companies breeding laboratory animals. Today there are just three because of activists’ intimidation of staff and of companies supplying services and products to laboratories.’

This is confirmed by Andy Cunningham, a Harlan manager who admits `Part of the overall reduction in company numbers has involved consolidation of businesses, but there is no doubt that intimidation has led to the closure of many other companies.’

Replace ‘intimidation’ with ‘robust protest’ and they are totally right! The animal rights movement has the formula for success. While we must adapt to the changing legal framework we must not abandon the time-tested methodology.

We must focus our energy and get back to old school animal rights. But focus on what? Professor Roger Morris, head of bioscience at King’s College London gives us a clue `We are now down to our last three major breeders in the UK. We can manage with that, but if we lose another we will be in a very uncomfortable situation.’”

Here are some more juicy confessions:

“Because of terrorist acts by animal activists, crucial research projects have been delayed or scrapped. More and more of the scarce dollars available to research are spent on heightened security and higher insurance rates. Promising young scientists are rejecting careers in research. Top-notch researchers are getting out of the field.” Susan Paris, president of the pro-vivisection group Americans for Medical Progress

“Where the direct, collateral, and indirect effects of incidents [of sabotage] are factored together, the ALF’s professed tactic of ‘economic sabotage’ can be considered successful, and its objectives, at least toward the victimized facility, fulfilled.” Report to Congress on Animal Enterprise Terrorism

“[Militant direct action tactics are] changing the kind of work people will do in the future. If students come to me interested in primate research, I would tell them to think about other things.”UCLA vivisector, Dario Ringach, who reluctantly abandoned nonhuman primate research in 2006 after relentless ALF attacks on his colleagues.

So next time a pacifist tells you that MDA “doesn’t work” and is “counter-productive,” tell them where to shove their ignorant, treacherous lies.

 

MUST WATCH: Dr Steve Best – The Paralysis of Pacifism

 

WKOG: An excellent lecture by Dr Steven Best. Not to be missed.

“The desire for a nonviolent and cooperative world is the healthiest of all psychological manifestations. This is the overarching principle of liberation and revolution. Undoubtedly, it seems the highest order of contradiction that, in order to achieve nonviolence, we must first break with it in overcoming its root causes. Therein lies our only hope.” — Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology

 

Conference: “The Paralysis of Pacifism: In Defense of Militant Direct Action and “Violence” for Animal Liberation” held by Prof. Steve Best in ex slaughterhouse of Aprilia – Italy – 06 September 2012.

Prof. Steve Best is a writer, speaker, public intellectual, and activist. Steven Best engages animal rights, species extinction, ecological crisis, biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media and culture, globalization, and capitalist domination. He is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso.

This conference has been organized by “Per Animalia Veritas” which is an organization that promotes antispecism as a radical revolution for a renewed cruelty-free and vegan society through militant activism.

To subscribe to Steve Best’s blog visit: http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/