THE DRAINING OF ANWR

An Iñupiat elder in Kaktovik, Alaska, at the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (delivered to big oil by the exiting Trump administration), advises that we keep older, more balanced ways of living in our minds, and argues that Indigenous people are the natural defenders of the land, who do not need to be regulated by the American government.
Ojibwe environmental activist and land defender Winona La Duke discusses “extreme extraction” and its lethal consequences, which have been foretold by Anishinaabe prophecy.
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg speaks at the UN Sept 23, 2019.
Dakota/Mexican activist, poet and musician John Trudell diagnoses European colonization and Columbus as “a virus, a disease.”

THE TERRORIST

Who is “the terrorist”? There’s the enemy abroad but also the other within. There’s the Arab, but also the Black. Black Identity Extremists. Assata Shakur on the terror list. Arabs in Arab attire by aerial view are Al Qaeda. But terror is part of whatever “fights terror.” “Terrorism” oozes from it. Terrorists are manufactured as terrorists by those who attack them. Being designated terrorist is being targeted. Terrorism pivots from language to action by rhetorically declaring that certain folks just can’t be reasoned with. All they understand is force. The media and the military work together to pre-kill targets by flinging the terrorist mask, condemning the bodies it hides.

THE TANTALUM WARS

Malcolm X condemns the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the placing of American puppet Tschombe in control of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Cell phones and video game consoles require tantalum, extracted from coltan, which is mined along with gold, silver, and other minerals in the DRC. Coltan mining, driven by the demand for such electronics, was a key force contributing to and sustaining the Congo Wars, which extended from 1996-2004 and killed over 5 million Africans. The Congo Wars persist today in the form of regional conflicts around the Great Lakes region of the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, where mining continues under the direction of militias and for the benefit of Northern corporations.

Bambuti Pygmy people in the DRC were targeted during the Second Congo War in the genocide campaign called “effacer le tableau” (“wiping the slate clean”), in which 60-70,000 were killed.

The Nokia 3310 phone and the Sony Playstation 2 were primary destinations for DRC Tantalum. In 2000, 126 million Nokia 3310 phones were sold. The Sony Playstation 2 was the biggest selling video game console of all time, with 155 million units sold.

ZOMIA

“Zomia” is a name for the the highlands of Southeast Asia, long populated by “nonstate peoples” very distinct from their state-controlled lowland neighbors. Political Scientist James C. Scott calls Zomia “the largest remaining region of the world whose peoples have not yet been fully incorporated into nation-states.”