Free Natan Blanc

The merciless occupation of the territories also affects conscientious Israelis. Natan Blanc, a 19 year old conscientious objector to the illegal, immoral and bizarrely corrupt Occupation, has been sentenced to 10 terms in jail - 178 days so far - with no alternative but to plead insanity. The following contains a note from my friend Ilene Cohen, and then two petitions, with the potential for immediate action. That Netanyahu is a bully and a joke is clear in the final article from Haaretz.

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Blanc is an objector particularly to the Occupation. During the Vietnam War to which many of us were objectors, John Rawls formulated an important argument on conscientious refusal in A Theory of Justice. This is refusal to serve in a specific unjust war - an aggression or occupation and a genocide as in Vietnam or, arguably, Palestine (the legal definition of genocide in the 1948 Convention against Genocide is imposing conditions designed to destroy a people "in whole or in part"). Rawls' point, which I endorse and offer some additional arguments for in Must Global Politics Constrain Democracy?, is that a strong state should recognize the conscience of individuals - it should grow out of such consciences, as Thoreau suggests in "Civil Disobedience" - and should be able to provide reasons for its policies which would stand up to debate with those who disagree.

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The governments of oligarchies with parliamentary forms have only the empty arguments of cells as the repeated sentencing of Natan Blanc, combined with the mechanical vapidity of the "courts" that do it, illustrates.

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Such governments are, however, frail. What serious arguments does Israel have to present that might convince some honorable person that in the Occupation, they do not just imitate once upon a time European conduct toward the Jews...?

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"May 23, 2013

Natan Blanc is a remarkable nineteen-year-old Israeli conscientious objector who refuses to serve in the army of occupation. He has just been sentenced to his tenth prison term for his refusal. I know I've sent out some postings about him previously.

First following is e-mail from Jewish Voice for Peace about Natan, including a petition calling for Natan's release to be sent to Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in Israel/Palestine right now (trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon). Kerry himself spoke out in front of Congress against the Vietnam War back in the day, and in Republican circles, who worship war, he is reviled to this day for his "treason" as a young man. Whether the case of an Israeli conscientious objector opposed to occupation will touch his soul, I don't know.

Second following is e-mail from Natan's father, including some useful links and the international petition on behalf of Natan.

Last following is a short essay by Uri Misgav in today's Haaretz on the case of Natan Blanc and its wider significance for Israel.

I hope you'll take a look.

Ilene"

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"Natan Blanc is in prison for his refusal to participate in the Israeli occupation.
When he was younger, John Kerry also stood up to an unjust war.
Urge him to stand up for Natan Blanc today!

Dear Ilene,

Natan Blanc is an Israeli teenager who was just sentenced to his 10th term in military prison for refusing to serve in the Israeli Army.

There's a growing global solidarity campaign -- and we need to do our part now.
This week, US Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting Jerusalem and Ramallah. When Kerry returned from Vietnam as a young soldier, he also followed his conscience, standing up to that unjust war. We're calling on Kerry to show the same moral courage now.

Can you sign our open letter asking John Kerry to demand the release of Israeli conscientious objector Natan Blanc? Just click here.

Kerry has the rare opportunity to urge Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya'alon to release Natan Blanc. Our goal is to gather 10,000 signatures on an open letter asking Kerry speak up.

The right to reject military service on grounds of conscientious objection is protected under international human rights law.

Especially if Kerry wants to establish himself as a trustworthy peace broker, he needs to step up now.

Stand up for Natan Blanc, and for everyone brave enough to follow their conscience.
Sincerely,

Sydney Levy
Director of Advocacy
Jewish Voices for Peace

P.S. If you're outside the US, it might make more sense to sign this petition, co-sponsored by some of our allies around the world."

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"From: David Blanc
To: nathanbl
Sent: Mon, May 20, 2013 2:02 am
Subject: Petition calling to free Natan Blanc

Natan Blanc is currently serving his tenth term in an Israeli military prison for refusing to be drafted into the Israeli Army, for reasons of conscience.

Amnesty International, War Resisters International, Yesh Gvul, New Profile, Gush Shalom, and Connection e.V. have initiated a petition calling for his release. Presently the petition is in English and German. Please sign and circulate:

English version here, German version here

If you are sending this to other people, here are some more details: Background: Natan Blanc, a 20-year old from Haifa, is currently serving his tenth term in an Israeli military prison for refusing to be drafted into the Israeli Army, for reasons of conscience. He was due to be inducted into the army on November 19, 2012, and was sentenced to 10 days in prison. Each time he was released from prison, he reported back to the induction center, and was sent back to prison. This has happened ten times, for a total of 178 days in prison. His current term, of 28 days,began on May 12, 2013.

You can read more about it in the Guardian here or on the website here.

Natan explained that he is refusing to serve because he feels that the current situation, in which millions of Palestinians under occupation are denied elementary democratic rights over many years, is immoral. He believes that the Israel Defence Forces play a major role in preserving this situation, and says that his conscience does not allow him to be part of it.

As far as we know, Natan is the first conscientious objector in the history of Israel who has been sentenced to ten consecutive terms in prison for the same offense."

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Haaretz
Opinion
Israel should embrace IDF refusenik Natan Blanc like it did Gilad Shalit
The state doesn't know how to deal with conscientious objectors.
By Uri Misgav | May.23, 2013

At the end of the day, it’s a story about two beds. One bed is a single, army bed made from iron, located in Military Prison No. 6. For the last six months, it’s been occupied by Natan Blanc. So far he’s been sentenced 10 times, for a combined total of 178 days − and counting. He has been imprisoned for refusing to serve in the Israel Defense Forces as long as it is being used as a tool by the government to continue the occupation and the bloodshed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Before he arrived at the IDF recruitment center, he volunteered for a year’s community service in Jerusalem, and wants to be allowed to replace military service with national service.

This week, 36 lawyers sent a polite protest letter to the Military Advocate General. Their main argument was that their treatment of Blanc is “a violation of the principle of proportionality,” resulting in an “inappropriate policy.” It’s hard to think of limper language. What they should have written is: “Say, have you lost your mind? Exactly when is the army going to stop torturing this kid? And what legal proceedings are planned for him later on − life imprisonment?

It’s clear that Blanc’s case is a challenge for the system. He’s a conscientious objector, but with a very specific conscience. His case exposes the fact that Israel has a hierarchy of types of conscience. Of course, the religious conscience is exempt from military service, as is the national conscience (Arabs are also exempt), and the family conscience (married women are also exempt). Even the ideological conscience is taken into account (pacifism, if properly proven). But Blanc is citing a different type of conscience: a political one. And this type is difficult to deal with on a theoretical level. This difficulty is understandable, but at the end of the day the practical decision the system has made has been to trample a lone man who posed an obstacle. Blanc’s 178 days of imprisonment represent cowardice, vindictiveness and mostly, a terrifying inflexibility.

This is the point where Blanc’s personal story should trouble every Israeli citizen who sees himself as a member of the human race, irrespective of his political stance. This bureaucratic inflexibility allows military judicial officers, senior general staff and publicly elected officials to keep sleeping peacefully, while an idealistic 19 year old has already been imprisoned for 178 nights − and the only solution he has been offered is to declare himself to be mentally disturbed. But so far Blanc’s story hasn’t made Israelis lift a finger. Most of them haven’t even heard of him. Among those who have, many remain indifferent, and even believe that he deserves to be punished. And this is a country that was going crazy over the case of Gilad Shalit − who was called “everyone’s son” − for years. Shalit was returned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a decision that contradicted the position he had consistently held on the subject of prisoner exchanges.

This puzzling fact demands an explanation, and brings us to the second bed − the extravagant double bed that Netanyahu and his wife Sara had installed on one of their official planes.

Netanyahu returned Shalit at a time when he was alarmed by the extent of the socioeconomic protests. He struggled to explain exactly why he had changed his mind regarding the deal, and tried to mumble something about a change in the regional circumstances. Eventually he gave his wife as a reason, saying that she had told him: “Think what you would do if he was your son.”

In the last decade, Sara Netanyahu’s nephew Yonatan Ben-Artzi was imprisoned for a prolonged period for being a conscientious objector. When reasonable justice and logic collapse, and the systems are paralyzed, one can only hope that as the couple get into their bed, the empress will whisper into her husband’s ear that he must also put an end to this crazy story.

Poem: Truly a mountain

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The Prison Industrial Compex at the Merc Wednesday May 22 6-9

Harold Fields, who works with the Spirituals Project at the University of Denver, sent me this announcement about an important gathering this Wednesday about the prisons:

"May 22, 6 to 9 pm, the Social Forum Collective presents “Building Prison Industrial Complex with help of the New Jim Crow” at the Mercury Cafe (2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205.) In this interactive teach-in, we will watch the short version of THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN, then have a lively discussion with our panel of experts, using The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander.

Short bios of our facilitators:

· Theo Wilson is a founding member of the Denver Slam Nuba team, who won the National Poetry Slam in 2011. He began his speaking career in the N.A.A.C.P. at the age of 15, and has always had a passion for social justice. He attended Florida A&M University, where he obtained his B.A. in Theater Performance. Upon graduating, he interned as a full time actor in St. Louis Black Repertory Company, where he was introduced to Slam Poetry, and has never looked back. In 2004, he returned to Denver, winning many local slams against Denver's top competitors. In 2009, he had the honor of placing 5th in the world at the International World Poetry Slam. He teaches and lectures on poetry with the Art-From-Ashes nonprofit poetry therapy organization, and is a proud resident of Denver, Colorado. Theo currently works as a community organizer with the Barber Shop Talk collective, as well as other social change and rebirth collaborative. He has participated as a featured speaker in several TEDx Mile High productions. Theo has opened for performers such as Dead Prez, The Flobots, Bahamadia, Saul Williams, Taylor Mali and Universes. Theo is focused on addressing the New Jim crow from the ground level, dealing with men and women who are currently walking the streets branded as felons and outcasts. Having resigned from working in a correctional facility in 2005, Theo saw firsthand the injustice of the Justice System from inside the walls. He credits this experience with spurring him on to do the work of community organizing in "underprivileged" communities, and is himself a survivor of police brutality. He is happy to engage in this forum.

· John M Riley joined the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC) Board of Directors in 2007 and served as its president for 2 years. John accepted a position with CCJRC as the Coalition Coordinator in Jan. 2011. He retired as the Director of Special Projects from the Colorado Division of Youth Corrections (DYC) after 30 years of correctional employment in Ohio and Colorado. John worked in secure facilities, community correction facilities, assessment units, and as a parole counselor. He was the Director of Foxfire Juvenile Boot Camp, Adams Youth Service Center and Platte Valley Youth Service Centers. John is committed to reducing the use of mass incarceration in Colorado. John's simple goal is to shrink the size of Colorado criminal justice systems and move the savings to treatment, K-12, and college/vocational programming.

· Walter Barrett owner of Barrett and Associates Private Investigations. 5 years in the Colorado Public Defenders Office and 36 years as a Private Investigator, mostly preparing Criminal Defense and Plaintiffs Discrimination litigation cases. Has worked over 100 murder cases including Death Penalty in Colorado and other states. Owner-Creative Alternatives to Incarceration, preparing programs to keep people out of prison while giving back to the victims, their families, communities and the offender. Member of the Steering Committee for PMAAG (Post Michelle Alexander Action Group.) He is also on the Planning Committee for the TCRace Group. Proudly volunteers with VORP, facilitating Restorative Justice for Juveniles, helping to keep them off the school to jail track. He is a foot soldier in the Civil, Gay, Women’s Rights, Pro Abortion, Alternatives to The Death Penalty, and Occupy movements. He speaks in schools, churches, and to community organizations about the Death Penalty, his experiences, Drugs, keeping children from becoming his clients and taking different paths. Helps Run 4 non profit organizations, working with Homeless and other folks in need of support. He's an Urban Farmer and member of the Grow Local Movement, learning and working to assist people in low income neighborhoods grow their own good food, for little money, including working with Returning Citizens who need a natural way back into the world, after being incarcerated."

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This is a crucial issue about whether America, the largest police state in the world with 2.3 million prisoners (25% of the world's prisoners) and another 5.1 million on probation can claim to be a free regime. See here, here, here and here.

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Reverend Butch Montoya, who works with the homeless, also sent around a letter on a showing of the film tonight the 21st at New Hope Baptist Church at 6:30:

"Metro Denver Coalition
Clergy Police and Sheriff Departments
United Against Violence


If you have an interest or concern about “The War on Drugs,” and the implications of this effort to eradicate the use of drugs, this is a film you must take time to view.

The public showing of “The House I Live In,” is a dynamic and challenging subject captured by filmmakers. The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, along with New Hope Baptist Church are sponsoring this showing of the film.

The war on drugs had essentially failed to meet the goals and vision of the people most affected by drug use or who are constantly affected by the availability of drugs.

Two of the facts that are simply unbelievable, but true. Since 1972, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests and has cost more than one trillion dollars. As a result, the United States has become the world’s largest jailer, and the high volume of drug arrests have destroyed low-income communities, creating a vicious cycle that must stop.

Please read the information below for more the film, “The House I Live In.” I urge pastors and faith leaders to place this on your schedules. It may shock you to see how this war on drugs has failed to help the people most affected by drug use. The lives wasted, mostly Black and Latino and from low in-come communities because of an injustice in sentencing, unjust legislation, and efforts to deal with the problem by placing people in jails.

Please plan to attend on May 21, at New Hope Baptist Church, 3701 Colorado Blvd, at 6:30 p.m.

Blessings/Bendiciones,
Fidel “Butch” Montoya

Let us also remember to keep the people in Moore, Oklahoma which was devastated by an F5 tornado in our prayers. As of Monday evening, 51 known dead, but more than 24 children are still missing in the school flattened by the tornado. Pray for the families of these children and others affected by the deadly storm. The images of this tornado are chilling knowing that so many people were affected by this storm."

Jose de la Isla on "Lincoln" and Black Patriots and Loyalists

Jose de la Isla published a striking column on "Lincoln" and Black Patriots and Loyalists providing the real backdrop for the film for the Scipps-Howard newspaper chain here, including the Santa Maria Times, California here, the San Angelo Standard-Times here and the Times-Herald of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania here.. De las Isla writes for the Hispanic Link News Service. For more on "'Lincoln' and Founding Myths" see here and here, and for more on Black Patriots and Loyalists, see here.

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Times-Herald
Opinion »Columnist »
De la Isla: ‘Lincoln’ suggests we can handle the truth

By JOSE de la ISLA Posted: Sunday, 02/10/13 01:26 pm


For the image of Lincoln, see here.

This image released by Walt Disney Pictures shows Daniel Day-Lewis portraying Abraham Lincoln in the film

Hispanic Link News Service

MEXICO CITY — Steven Spielberg’s movie — based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” — suggests maybe we have matured in how we understand our national past. Maybe some other conceptual changes are in store for us.

The movie portrays Lincoln’s efforts in 1865 to get the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment, which, upon ratification by three-fourths of the states, banned slavery in the young nation.

But the film raises the obvious question: Where were the blacks in all of this?

Yes, there was a moving first scene with black soldiers and, elsewhere in the film, an excellent performance by Gloria Reuben as Elizabeth Keckley, the former slave, dressmaker and Mary Todd Lincoln’s confidante.

It turns out the film’s storyline has a prequel: Alan Gilbert’s 2012 book, “Black Patriots and Loyalists.” Subtitled “Fighting for Emancipation in the War of Independence,” it challenges commonly held perspectives about what took place. It highlights a long-held misunderstanding, maybe distortion.

The book by Gilbert, a professor in the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, shows how the historical episode we know as the American Revolution actually involved two revolutions. The white colonies fought successfully for their independence, and blacks fought for emancipation unachieved until decades later.

Gilbert notes that in 1775, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore and the royal governor of Virginia, declared that slaves who left their masters to join the British royalist cause would be emancipated.

This unnerved Gen. George Washington and other patriots. By 1776, he’d lifted the ban against blacks in the Continental Army. And in 1778, short of troops for Valley Forge, he recruited the all-black and Narragansett Indian First Rhode Island Regiment.

Some claimed to be free or thought they would be by serving the cause. Others became free by compensating their owners, but no general emancipation took place.

This matters today, because the national experience was about the pursuit of a spotty human freedom. All humans, regardless of race or gender and origins, have an equal moral capacity for freedom, University of Denver economist Haider Ali Khan recently wrote in the journal Cosmopolis in reviewing his colleague’s book.

People throughout the world come to believe myths and legends more than a verifiable narrative. That’s how the Native American Indians got displaced from the national story. However, we are now coming to regret the loss of understanding.

The “forgotten” black revolution went beyond our acknowledged appreciation and reached Canada, Sierra Leone and the 1804 liberation of Haiti from France. It helped the struggle to abolish slavery in the British Empire by 1833.

The Spanish North American experience was already more advanced in this aspect of human rights than were the Anglo Americans. That episode needs to become joined to the story.

In historical terms, this North American experience has been about culture. It’s high time to get the story straight.

It’s also time to dispose of the prejudice and disdain from telling of the Spanish American and rich Native American heritage, except as how they were supplanted.

It means telling the cultural story of our peoples and not the war story about battles and bullies alone. As with the movie “Lincoln,” the story is not about the battles but about what humans sought from peace.

Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. Email joseisla@yahoo.com.

A surprising smoking gun – the Federal verdict on the determined peacefulness of Cheyenne and Arapahoe leaders and the cruelty and deceptiveness of Evans and Chivington, document 7

The Joint Committee of Congress on the Conduct of the War begins its unbelieving report - shock that American soldiers could have ripped babies out of mother's wombs or abandoned a toddler to die - on Sand Creek with an account of John Evans’s actions. It does so because Evans was not second to Chivington in cruelty and murder but equivalent. For ’Massacre of the Cheyenne Indians,’ a Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Cong., 2 sess., Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865 – see here and here.

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This is the Joint Committee’s devastating sentence about Evans’s attitude toward the indigenous people, those who had gone with both determination to make peace and submission to the United States Government, to Sand Creek: “What Indians he would ever term friendly it is impossible to tell.”

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This sentence alone, along with his subsequent dismissal for the Massacre by Secretary of State William Seward, should have prevented his lionization in Colorado and Illinois...See here.

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The Report also named Evans' rare duplicitousness in seeking to avoid responsibility for the Massacre:

“All the testimony goes to show that the Indians, under the immediate control of Black Kettle and White Antelope of the Cheyennes, and Left Hand of the Arapahoes, were and had been friendly to the whites, and had not been guilty of any acts of hostility or depredation. The Indian agents, the Indian interpreter and others examined by your committee, all testify to the good character of those Indians. Even Governor Evans and Major Anthony, though evidently willing to convey to your committee a false impression of the character of those Indians, were forced, in spite of their prevarication, to admit that they knew of nothing they had done which rendered them deserving of punishment.” (p. II)

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As Evans suggests – see the Camp Weld Meeting and his response to his firing here and here – the dog society was not a separate group and some of those who rebelled against American aggression and killed settlers, were linked to them. But this is beside the point...

The leaders who went under US army direction at Sand Creek, especially Moketavato (Black Kettle), had tried extensively and at great risk to themselves to make peace. They had moved again and again at Evans', Chivington's, Wynkoop's and Anthony's requests. They had every reason to believe they were at peace.

The deception and cowardice of all but Major Edward Wynkoop - who meant what he said, was a decent man, and, unusually, an honorable soldier, and thus, transferred in corrupt preparation for the Massacre - is glaring. It is the length and cruelty of the deception - "shooting fish in a barrel" into which one has lured them under false promises - combined with inhuman rapacity which evokes the horror.

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In fact, the Committee considers John Evans the worst prevaricator they had run across in any of their four years of hearings, including on the Fort Pillow massacre:

"His testimony before your committee was characterized by such prevarication and shuffling as has been shown by no witness they have examined during the four years they have been engaged in their investigations; and for the evident purpose of avoiding the admission that he was fully aware that the Indians massacred so brutally at Sand creek were then, and had been, actuated by the most friendly feelings towards the whites, and had done all in their power to restrain those less friendly disposed." (p. iv)

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About Chivington, the Methodist minister, the Joint Committee speaks with a horror into which one needs to feel one’s way:

“It is difficult to believe that beings in the form of men, and disgracing the uniform of United States soldiers and officers, could commit or countenance the commission of such acts of cruelty and barbarity as are detailed in the testimony, ...”

For Soule’s and Cramer’s letters specifying some of the atrocities as well as the testimony the Committee received, see here, here and here.

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“Beings in the form of men” – the Satanic reference, probably unfair to Satan – is in the Christian spirit of the time.

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The Committee elaborates:

“As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty.” (p. v)

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The Committee is, of course, racist toward indigenous people. It seeks comparison, after Satan, with “the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty.”

But there were no savages among those Chivington aggressed against.

Nor were there savages among those who fought back against American aggression, conquest, uprooting, ethnic cleansing…

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The Committee underlines the “fancied security” that the indigenous people had felt because of the repeated, dishonest representations and actions by Evans and Chivington:

“Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumental to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, [Chivington] took advantage of their inapprehension and defenceless condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man. It is thought by some that desire for political preferment prompted him to this cowardly act; that he supposed that by pandering to the inflamed passions of an excited population he could recommend himself to their regard and consideration. Others think it was to avoid the being sent where there was more of danger and hard service to be performed; that he was willing to get up a show of hostility on the part of the Indians by committing himself acts which savages themselves would never premeditate. Whatever may have been his motive, it is to be hoped that the authority of this government will never again be disgraced by acts such as he and those acting with him have been guilty of committing.” (p. v)

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The Report is also repelled by Chivington’s and Major Scott Anthony's cowardice:

“There were hostile Indians not far distant, against which Colonel Chivington could have led the force under his command. Major Anthony testifies that but three or four days' march from his post were several hundreds of Indians, generally believed to be engaged in acts of hostility towards the whites. And [Anthony] deliberately testifies that only the fear of them prevented him from killing those who were friendly and entirely within his reach and control. It is true that to reach them required some days of hard marching.

It was not to be expected that they could be surprised as easily as those on Sand creek; and the warriors among them were almost, if not quite, as numerous as the soldiers under the control of Colonel Chivington. Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities, and then returned to Denver and boasted of the brave deeds he and the men under his command had performed.”

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Prepared to wage aggression and force indigenous people from their homes onto cramped and desolate reservations, this Committee, nonetheless, banished public officials like John Evans and officers like John Chivington:

“The Congress of the United States, at its last session, authorized the appointment of a commission to investigate all matters relating to the administration of Indian affairs within the limits of the United States. Your committee most sincerely trust that the result of their inquiry will be the adoption of measures which will render impossible the employment of officers, civil and military, such as have heretofore made the administration of Indian affairs in this country a byword and reproach.

In conclusion, your committee are of the opinion that for the purpose of vindicating the cause of justice and upholding the honor of the nation, prompt and energetic measures should be at once taken to remove from office those who have thus disgraced the government by whom they are employed, and to punish, as their crimes deserve, those who have been guilty of these brutal and cowardly acts.” (pp. v-vi).

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Evans was asked by President Andrew Johnson to resign in disgrace.

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Chivington scurried out of the military. While he failed to gain hoped-for accolades and promotions, he did escape prosecution...

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Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, a former Chivington man, said in his letter to Major Wynkoop that Chivington (and others) should be “hanged.” See here.

The Committee uses more careful language but does not differ…

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We should, once again, step back from the Report to see precisely what was at issue here. All government officials were “Indian-killers.” They were all moving indigenous people out from their lands, blaming "savages" for the Government's ethnic cleansing, killing them, promising those resettled food but providing little, cordoning them off, supposedly to be farmers, on desolate properties.

So the United States Government rightly singling out - though all by itself - this Massacre as a disgrace, obscene and inhuman, is, as I have indicated, also a puzzle. For what the Committee says of the disgrace of Chivington and Evans applies to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and President Andrew Jackson and to nearly every other government activity toward indigenous people during the epoch of ethnic cleansing and since.

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For instance, Abraham Lincoln had appointed his friend and railway associate, John Evans, as Governor of the Colorado territory. Given his goal of unjust conquest of the West, however Lincoln, also opposed unnecessary slaughter and hanging of indigenous people. Thus, he cut the number of Dakota hung in Mankato, Minnesota in 1862 from the proposed 303 to 38 and thought this, the largest military hanging of “enemies” in American history, might cost him the 1864 election because the racism in Mankato was so fierce. See here and today's Minneapolis, St. Paul and Redwood City resolutions against the genocide here.

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Still, though an ethnic cleanser, Lincoln was better than Evans. He did not seek, beyond the government's genocide against indigenous people, to kill unnecessarily. These were thus the two faces - less extreme/even more treacherously murderous - of American genocide.

For the Civil War was both a fight for abolition (against a genocide characteristic of the American regime at its founding) and a war for ethnic cleansing in Minnesota and Colorado which ultimately lasted until 1890. See here. Lincoln was against genocide in the first case, and for it - once again, merely less extreme than Evans or Chivington - in the second.

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Captain Silas Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cameron, heroically, ordered their men not to fire at Sand Creek [to do full justice, they should have fired on Chivington]. They had argued against the Massacre with Chivington at the risk of their lives, and wrote to Major Wynkoop and testified at the Congressional hearings about it.

As a policemen in Denver Soule faced repeated attempts on his life and was murdered by 2 Union soldiers in the week following his testimony. Soule had initially been in with Chivington – referred to him as “Chiv” – and was willing, as was Cramer, to fight “hostile Indians.”

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Soule is rightly praised in the Cheyenne-Arapahoe Marathon from Sand Creek to the Denver State Capitol every year on the anniversary of the massacre. He was a martyr to being a human being.

He stood up because this cowardly, calculated, sneak, ravenous attack on friendly Indians exceeds the comprehension of any decent person.

The Committee's words of revulsion - that "beings in human form" could have done such crimes - reflect this.

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Still, among so many going back to Bacon’s Rebellion in 1680 (though uniting black and white and resulting, after its suppression in the adoption by the elite of the notion of “whiteness” for the first time – see Theodore Allen's insightful The Invention of the White Race - even this "Rebellion" was largely directed toward murdering indigenous people – see here), why is Sand Creek the only Massacre singled out for Federal condemnation? Why did this Massacre alone among all the others give rise to a treaty of reparations, the Treaty of Fort Arkansas (1865)?

But even this Treaty, illustrating the thoroughgoing genocidal character of the American government and, in this respect, empty paper, has to this day, not been honored.

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Nonetheless, the public recognition that America, within its not yet acknowledged great wrongs to indigenous people, had done a further, exacerbated wrong, is also important.

For horror overcame the Congressional representatives on listening to John Evans and John Chivington and Scott Anthony testify...

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Abstract from “whiteness”: imagine a powerful blue “civilization” – say, the Navi in "Avatar." for instance – doing this to green people, and you will see this point clearly. This is what John Rawls suggests in his idea of the original position, one which models what it is to take a moral stand, as Silas Soule did, in A Theory of Justice.

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Evans crystallizes his bad faith and denial in the last sentence of his testimony: the assertion that the Massacre did not provoke and would not extend the coming wars of 25 years...

"Question. I do not ask for an opinion. Do you know of any circumstance which would justify that attack?

Answer. I do not know of any circumstance connected with it subsequent to the time those Indians left me and I started for another part of the country. It is proper for me to say, that these attacks during the summer, and up to the time I came away, were of very frequent occurrence. The destruction of property was very great. Our people suffered wonderfully, especially in their property, and in their loss of life. They murdered a family some twenty-odd miles east of Denver. The attacks by hostile Indians, about the time I came away, were very numerous along the Platte. There was an attack as I came in, about the month of November. It was in the evening, about sundown, and I passed over the ground in the night in the stage with my family, and a few days afterwards a party of emigrants, returning from Colorado, were murdered near the same ground, which was near Plum creek; and for a considerable length of time, immediately after I came in, the attacks were very numerous and very violent, until the stage was interrupted so that it has not been running since, until within a few days.

I started home and could not get there because there was no transportation. I came back here and shall return in a few days again. I mention this in order to do away with the impression that might exist that hostilities had ceased, and that this attack of Colonel Chivington had excited the recent hostilities. These Indians told me, when they were there, that the Sioux were in large force on the head of the Republican, and would make an attack about the time I expected to come in. I delayed my coming in a short time on account of what they told me, and when I did come in I found some Indians commencing their depredations, which they continued about the month following, both before and after the attack made by Colonel Chivington. General Curtis wrote to me that he did not think Chivington's attack was the instigation of the hostilities perpetrated along the Platte."

Evans's words are a masterpiece of self-deception and prevarication.

***

At My Lai, Lieutenant Calley slaughtered civilians. A two year old was among those whom American “soldiers” shot.

Yet, this Massacre was worse, as the Joint Committee’s reports. For that was a village in Vietnam which could have contained guerillas – though murdering civilians was also the American way of war. The Vietnam War, too, was genocidal, a point which Hugo Bedau tried to deflect barely in a subtle essay here, in a Scottish verdict “not proven, not quite” – but is, in retrospect, inescapable.

***

But these were Indians who had came to Denver at great risk, moved where Chivington told them, were given rations, treated as prisoners of war and disarmed by Major Wynkoop. And Major Scott Anthony – as Lieutenant Cramer says a man “with a face for every person” – also held them prisoner. Here is the long beginning of the Committee’s report which specifies how much effort these indigenous people had made, how much reason they had been given to think they were safe, i.e. to deceive them into “fancied security”:

"In the summer of 1864 Governor Evans, of Colorado Territory, as acting superintendent of Indian affairs, sent notice to the various bands and tribes of Indians within his jurisdiction that such as desired to be considered friendly to the whites should at once repair to the nearest military post in order to be protected from the soldiers who were to take the field against the hostile Indians.

About the close of the summer, some Cheyenne Indians, in the neighborhood of the Smoke Hills, sent word to Major Wynkoop, the commandant of the post of Fort Lyon, that they had in their possession, and were willing to deliver up, some white captives they had purchased of other Indians. Major Wynkoop, with a force of over 100 men, visited those Indians and received the white captives. On his return he was accompanied by a number of the chiefs and leading men of the Indians, whom he had invited to visit Denver for the purpose of conferring with the authorities there in regard to keeping peace.

Among them were Black Kettle and White Antelope of the Cheyennes, and some chiefs of the Arapahoes. The council was held, and these chiefs stated that they were friendly to the whites, and always had been, and that they desired peace. Governor Evans and Colonel Chivington, the commander of that military district, advised them to repair to Fort Lyon and submit to whatever terms the military commander there should impose. This was done by the Indians, who were treated somewhat as prisoners of war, receiving rations, and being obliged to remain within certain bounds.

All the testimony goes to show that the Indians, under the immediate control of Black Kettle and White Antelope of the Cheyennes, and Left Hand of the Arapahoes, were and had been friendly to the whites, and had not been guilty of any acts of hostility or depredation. The Indian agents, the Indian interpreter and others examined by your committee, all testify to the good character of those Indians. Even Governor Evans and Major Anthony, though evidently willing to convey to your committee a false impression of the character of those Indians, were forced, in spite of their prevarication, to admit that they knew of nothing they had done which rendered them deserving of punishment.

A northern band of the Cheyennes, known as the Dog Soldiers, had been guilty of acts of hostility; but all the testimony goes to prove that they had no connexion with Black Kettle's band, but acted in despite of his authority and influence. Black Kettle and his band denied all connexion with or responsibility for the Dog Soldiers, and Left Hand and his band of Arapahoes were equally friendly.

These Indians, at the suggestion of Governor Evans and Colonel Chivington, repaired to Fort Lyon and placed themselves under the protection of Major Wynkoop. They were led to believe that they were regarded in the light of friendly Indians, and would be treated as such so long as they conducted themselves quietly.

The treatment extended to those Indians by Major Wynkoop does not seem to have satisfied those in authority there, and for some cause, which does not appear, he was removed, and Major Scott J. Anthony was assigned to the command of Fort Lyon; but even Major Anthony seems to have found it difficult at first to pursue any different course towards the Indians he found there. They were entirely within the power of the military. Major Anthony having demanded their arms, which they surrendered to him, they conducted themselves quietly, and in every way manifested a disposition to remain at peace with the whites. For a time even he continued issuing rations to them as Major Wynkoop had done; but it was determined by Major Anthony (whether upon his own motion or at the suggestion of others does not appear) to pursue a different course towards these friendly Indians. They were called together and told that rations could no longer be issued to them, and they had better go where they could obtain subsistence by hunting. At the suggestion of Major Anthony (and from one in his position a suggestion was equivalent to a command) these Indians went to a place on Sand creek, about thirty-five miles from Fort Lyon, and there established their camp, their arms being restored to them. He told them that he then had no authority to make peace with them; but in case he received such authority he would inform them of it.

In his testimony he says:

"I told them they might go back on Sand creek, or between there and the headwaters of the Smoky Hill, and remain there until I received instructions from the department headquarters, from General Curtis: and that in case I did receive any authority to make peace with them I would go right over and let them know it. I did not state to them that I would give them notice in case we intended to attack them. They went away with that understanding, that in case I received instructions from department headquarters I was to let them know it." (pp. ii-iii)

Note that Anthony was plotting to surprise and slaughter them. He seems one thing and is another…

***

The Report continues:

“And in order, as it were, to render these Indians less apprehensive of any danger, One Eye, a Cheyenne chief; was allowed to remain with them to obtain information for the use of the military authorities. He was employed at $125 a month, and several times brought to Major Anthony, at Fort Lyon, information of proposed movements of other and hostile bands. Jack Smith, a half-breed son of John S. Smith, an Indian interpreter, employed by the government, was also there for the same purpose. A United States soldier was allowed to remain there, and two days before the massacre Mr. Smith, the interpreter, was permitted to go there with goods to trade with the Indians. Everything seems to have been done to remove from the minds of these Indians any fear of approaching danger; and when Colonel Chivington commenced his movement he took all the precautions in his power to prevent these Indians learning of his approach. For some days all travel on that route was forcibly stopped by him, not even the mail being allowed to pass. On the morning of the 28th of November he appeared at Fort Lyon with over 700 mounted men and two pieces of artillery. One of his first acts was to throw a guard around the post to prevent any one leaving it. At this place Major Anthony joined him with 125 men and two pieces of artillery.”

***

Note that Chivington engaged in a forced march to Fort Lyon and then threw a “guard around the Post" to prevent any word of the coming attack from getting out.

The aim was to ambush friendly Indians and then bill this as “heroic” and “glorious.” It was this odious combination which elicited revulsion in the Committeee.

***

“On the night of the 28th the entire party started from Fort Lyon, and, by a forced march, arrived at the Indian camp, on Sand creek, shortly after daybreak. This Indian camp consisted of about 100 lodges of Cheyennes, under Black Kettle, and from 8 to 10 lodges of Arapahoes under Left Hand. It is estimated that each lodge contained five or more persons, and that more than one-half were women and children.

Upon observing the approach of the soldiers, Black-Kettle, the head chief, ran up to the top of his lodge an American flag, which had been presented to him some years before by Commissioner Greenwood, with a small white flag under it, as he had been advised to do in case he met with any troops on the prairies. Mr. Smith, the interpreter, supposing they might be strange troops, unaware of the character of the Indians encamped there, advanced from his lodge to meet them, but was fired upon, and returned to his lodge.And then the scene of murder and barbarity began--men, women, and children were indiscriminately slaughtered. In a few minutes all the Indians were flying over the plain in terror and confusion. A few who endeavored to hide themselves under the bank of the creek were surrounded and shot down in cold blood, offering but feeble resistance. From the sucking babe to the old warrior, all who were overtaken were deliberately murdered. Not content with killing women and children, who were incapable of offering any resistance, the soldiers indulged in acts of barbarity of the most revolting character; such, it is to be hoped, as never before disgraced the acts of men claiming to be civilized. No attempt was made by the officers to restrain the savage cruelty of the men under their command, but they stood by and witnessed these acts without one word of reproof if they did not incite their commission. For more than two hours the work of murder and barbarity was continued, until more than one hundred dead bodies, three-fourths of them of women and children, lay on the plain as evidences of the fiendish malignity and cruelty of the officers who had so sedulously and carefully plotted the massacre, and of the soldiers who had so faithfully acted out the spirit of their officers." (pp. iii-iv)

***

The Committee report is signed by Benjamin F. Wade, a radical Republican who hated slavery and supported women’s suffrage. Yet somehow no entry on him in Wikipedia - see here, for example - mentions this central report, as if the massacre of indigenous people at Sand Creek - and the quarter century subsequent War - is unimportant. Racism, to this day, stands out in high relief…

***

As I indicated about Evans first proclamation here, killing the women and children of “hostile Indians" was initially no problem for the Lincoln Administration and Congress. But the acts toward Indians who had demonstrated their friendliness with great determination, coupled with Evans', Chivington's and Anthony's prolonged deceptiveness, were.

Alice Rothchild on the trauma Israel creates at home

In a Boston Globe op-ed Tuesday, Alice Rothchild, a doctor and a companion on the Dorothy Cotton Institute delegation to Palestine last October, applies the wonderful standard of the Israeli trauma team which came to Boston about the Marathon murders there to the State of Israel's conduct toward Bedouins and Palestinians.

***

This is a core or uncontroversial moral standard. It is a good thing that they do here but the standard is universal; it applies most at home where it is...forgotten. There are no Bedouins or Palestians who are traumatized because the state of Israel "couldn't be," "couldn't be" doing such things.

The team does not apply this standard at home because there are false empirical claims, racist and factual ones, coupled with fear, which organize the evil (the imposition of trauma) and the surprising neglect by the expert trauma team. These racist claims and fear override, in these telling cases, the core moral standards. (My book Democratic Individuality explains, in depth, this account of complex moral and political differences - that they are not driven by clashing, underlying moral standards - which is widely but foolishly denied in current moral relativisms...).

***

The same core moral standards which motivate each of us, those who identify with the Jews and many others in Europe who suffered under the Nazis and other forms of European domination apply just as strongly - this is easy for me to see as a Jew - to the illegal apartheid that the state of Israel enacts in the Occupied Territories.

***

The Bedouins who are travelers are not even accounted or provided for in the exclusively "Jewish" state. There is no active campaign of hysteria toward the Bedouins, as there is toward the Palestinians. They do not fight back (the Palestinians, as Amira Hass has recently emphasized, are of course justified in fighting back, as were the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto).

The Bedouins are just denied and oppressed by the state of Israel.

***

Alice was, as a teenager, a Zionist. Her discovery of what Israel has done and does daily toward Palestinians has led to a fierce commitment to tell the truth.

That the Boston Globe now prints something true about the Israeli trauma team coming to the United States is an important shift.

***

Americans, too, who have conducted a holocaust toward indigenous people and through slavery, segregation and mass imprisonment, toward blacks, are quick to point at - sometimes call for military action against - others.

***

That such false intuitions and policies are destructive for most of us is revealed, for instance, in the American aggression in Iraq - "it was as if after Pearl Harbor, FDR had attacked Mexico" as Richard Clarke, the fierce security expert starting under Reagan and disregarded by W., memorably put it in Against All Enemies. Ordinary Americans pay the costs in lives, mutilations and ptsd for all the murdering of innocent Iraqis, in the disgrace of torture and in debt for generations - the depression, the paralysis of Keynsian programs to put people back to work, the arrogant profiteering of the .0001%, aggravated climate change - Sandy, the droughts and fires (one near my house and) throughout the West - through the buying of politicians by the oil companies, and the like. That most of us have the slightest interest in American militarism - the leaders of the war complex do but I mean any of the rest of us - is unclear in any normal discussion (one not for the powerful i.e. in the corporate media, and adapted - fewer speak the truth from below except in cases like Occupy or individuals who stand up - to making them feel self-important...

***

Most Israeli Jews are harmed by militarism and the Reaganomics of Mr. Netanyahu (Romney's buddy). The demonstrations about housing in the summer of 2011 reveal this as does the fear which drives the expansion into the occupied territories. The huge number of well-designed - from the point of view of killing civilians - Israeli missiles and helicopters (fired by the Israeli government, made, i.e. Apaches, tear gas canisters from Consolidated Systems Inc. by the American war complex...) which strike into Gaza and the West Bank - are responded to by a few missiles from Gaza. Ordinary Israelis live in fear, see no long run future, and need peace and individual security.

***

Each of us must look into ourselves about the traumas we see, the traumas we have forgotten but move anew, to this moment, acts of oppression...

***

For links among Founding Amnesias, see here, here and here.

***

Tuesday, May 14, 2013
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/05/14/podium-rothchild/sT6rpjligba2f6dbFYQRdO/story.html
The Boston Globe
The Podium
The politicization of trauma care
By Alice Rothchild

On the face of it, Israel has made a good and generous offer: a country well-versed in advanced trauma care offers a team of experts to Boston and its neighbors at a time of great hardship, supporting the needs of innocent victims of the tragic Boston Marathon bombings. Last week six Israeli trauma experts from the Israel Trauma Coalition for Response and Preparedness visited Boston to help develop recovery strategies with their local counterparts.

Funded by Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies to the tune of roughly $75,000, this is part of an effort to “provide people with a Jewish response to helping victims and their families recover from this traumatic event,” said Gail Weinberg of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas on its website. Interestingly, Israeli trauma teams have been active all over the world, from post-earthquake Haiti to post-Katrina New Orleans, from Mumbai, India to Toulouse, France. Coalition director Talia Levanon explains in The Times of Israel, “You are meeting different people in different parts of the world, but they all have the same fears and issues and responses. The world has become a small place and we derive a lot of strength when we work together. We speak the same emotional language all over the world.”

So why does this make me uneasy? While I have no doubt that the experience and broad community focus of the Israeli team has been helpful, Boston is a major medical center with world-class hospitals and trauma teams and strong community resources.

An Israeli team in Boston provides Israel with a feel good moment and well-publicized appreciation, from the Massachusetts governor on down.

But there is a powerful disconnect here. I just received a note from Rabbis for Human Rights about 40,000 Bedouin Israeli citizens who are being removed from their homes and sources of income to artificial townships. I am troubled by the steady stream of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strikes in Israeli jails, trapped for months without trials in endless administrative detention.

Then there is the news from the West Bank town of Budrus, where years of nonviolent protests led to a change in the path of the Israeli-built separation wall. Last week, after the release of a graphic novel by Just Vision documenting that struggle, the Israeli army arrived, shooting tear gas and starting a fire in the village’s olive groves. And the 1.7 million inhabitants of Gaza, over half of whom are children, live on the edge of hunger, deprivation, and uncertainty due to the ongoing siege and frequent Israeli incursions.

There is also the issue of asylum seekers. In February, Israeli authorities deported over 1,000 Sudanese refugees to North Sudan despite the fact that, “[Sudan] has vowed to punish any of its citizens who ever set foot in Israel.” Ironically, many of the Sudanese who fled to Israel left from Darfur where there is an ongoing struggle by Jewish US activists against the genocidal policies of the Sudanese government.

But to return to the Boston victims, I have no doubt that the Israeli trauma team was filled with good intentions as well as expertise, but this feels like an opportunistic political moment where good deeds are actually part of a larger intent to manipulate image making.

What about the victims that are not an ocean away? Do they not “all have the same fears and issues and responses?” Do they not “speak the same emotional language all over the world?” I can only ask, are they not deserving of the care, expertise, and attention of Israeli trauma teams? Why come all the way to Boston?

Alice Rothchild is a Boston-based physician, author, and filmmaker who is active in the US Jewish peace movement

the Minneapolis City Council acknowledges the ethnic cleansing of the Dakota

This year is the 150th anniversary of the massacre and driving out of Dakota Indians from Minnesota, the so-called "Dakota-US War of 1862." See here.

The City Councils of Minneapolis, of St. Paul and of Redwood City have each declared this year "the Year of the Dakota in Minnesota." Their resolutions and who voted for them are below.(h/t Chris Mato Nunpa, Tink Tinker).

***

The Minneapolis resolution states: "Whereas, the year 2012 is the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 that led to the mass execution of 38 Dakota, the largest in the history of the United States, and the genocide of the Dakota people..."

***

The Redwood City and Minneapolis resolutions speak forthrightly of the trauma inflicted on indigenous people.

In addition, the forgetfulness of the American population about genocide is also a trauma or a matter of ptsd, echoed today in wretched aggressions toward nonwhite people. America boasts of being peaceful toward other democracies, while it overthrows or undermines those of nonwhite peoples (some 15 coups against nonwhite democracies during and after the Cold War). Even Obama sends the drones to murder nonwhite civilians, sometimes including American citizens, in countries against which America has not declared war (Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan)...

***

Jordan Pacheco, a social and political theorist and Ph.D. student in Social Work at the University of Denver, hails from southern (non-DC) Virginia. When she was growing up, she would be driven to visit her grandmother along Robert E. Lee highway, or for trips, along Jefferson Davis highway. She was taught in school "about the war of Northern aggression."

There is no road for Harriet Tubman or John Brown or Martin Luther King...

***

In the South, the Confederacy and slaveholding are largely remembered by the power holders, the genocidal character of slavery forgotten until nearly this moment. In January of this year, the City Council of Memphis courageously passed resolutions renaming the awful Jefferson Davis Park and Nathan Bedford Forrest Park (the slave-trader who founded the Ku Klux Klan)...

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In Mississippi, the state legislature just now - after 148 years - ratified the 13th Amendment that cleans up the American Constitution.

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The intense Founding Myth of the United States is palpable in Jordan's childhood experience and in the experience of everyone who deals with the South and the United States until now...

***

But what I have named a Founding Amnesia of America has been even more pervasive in Minnesota.

In Mankato, the scene of Abraham Lincoln's hanging of 38 Dakota men, the largest military hanging in American history, there was only a statue of Pocahantas, not one of a single Dakota, not one of those driven off the land...

***

The statue of Pocahantas has about as much relation to the ethnic cleansing of Minnesota as Columbus' naming of "Indians" - the predator thought he had reached India - has to do with his first genocide in Hispaniola.

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But the City Councils of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Redwood City now name this history, bring it out from under the veil of forgetfulness. This is an important democratic action, something that begins to acknowledge the wretchedness of the American past, something that promises a future in which all the citizens of the United States can live together decently.

***

And if we can live together decently, perhaps we can begin to deal with America's murderousness and oppression in "Indian country" abroad as a Colonel in Iraq addressed it to his soldiers before the American aggression there. See here. Perhaps we can begin to abate this madness and deal also with the American role in climate change where American "forgetfulness," engineered by the oil companies and contained in the pages of the New York Times - see the front page article from Saturday "Carbon dioxide passes long feared milestone" here for this, in the Times unusual, frightening story - is likely to make the planet uninhabitable for much of humanity in this century.

***

May this be a year of truth telling in Minnesota, in Denver and throughout the country...

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RESOLUTION
of the
CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS

By Lilligren, Gordon, Reich, Hofstede, Johnson, Samuels, Goodman, Glidden, Schiff, Tuthill, Quincy, Colvin Roy, and Hodges.


Recognizing the 150th Anniversary of the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 and Declaring 2012-2013 the Year of the Dakota in Minneapolis.

Whereas, the year 2012 is the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 that led to the mass execution of 38 Dakota, the largest in the history of the United States, and the genocide of the Dakota people; and

Whereas, much has yet to be learned about issues revolving around land, reparations and restitution, treaties, genocide, suppression of American Indian spirituality and ceremonies, suppression of Indigenous languages, bounties, concentration camps, forced marches, mass executions, and forcible removals; and

Whereas, Indigenous women, children and elderly were held in a concentration camp at the base of Fort Snelling, separated from the men, before being exiled to reservations in neighboring states and Canada, and later being stripped of their culture and traditions in boarding schools and subjected to white culture and religions; and

Whereas, the complete history of Minnesota must be taught from the perspective of all people that have lived it;

Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved by the City Council of The City of Minneapolis:

That every effort must be made to ensure that the Dakota perspective is presented during the year 2012-2013, through discussions at forums, events, symposia, conferences and workshops, to include the complex issues listed above;

Be It Further Resolved that the City of Minneapolis works to promote the well-being and growth of the American Indian community, including Dakota People.

Be It Further Resolved that these efforts during the years 2012 and 2013 will mark the beginning of future dialogues and efforts to rectify the wrongs that were perpetrated during, and since, the year 1862, a tragic and traumatic event for the Dakota People of Minnesota.

Be It Further Resolved that the year 2012-2013 is hereby designated “The Year of the Dakota: Remembering, Honoring, and Truth-Telling,” from December 26, 2012 to December 26, 2013.

Passed December 14, 2012

__________________________________
Barbara Johnson, President
Minneapolis City Council

Approved:

___________________________________
R. T. Rybak, Mayor

Attest:

___________________________________
Casey Carl, City Clerk


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For news stories on the St. Paul resolution - the latter names the aggression more than this coverage - see here and here
.