She addresses the situation in Canada and how the indigenous’ rights outlined in the law have not been honorably enforced. She speaks with heartfelt passion towards the land. She sees this as a fight for her children.
We are all borrowing this land while we are here–no one owns the land, truly. One cannot own what one did not create…and one cannot take without giving equally in return…
What a stirring, beautiful song. (Now THIS is what I’m talking about when I talk about music stirring the soul!) (hat tip to Global News Canada)
Thank you to Neil Young for making this available. The video is just stunning…how beautiful the untouched Earth is when left alone…and how quickly it is destroyed by thoughtlessness and lack of vision of the future…
Young isn’t asking for any contributions, but I’m sure this song will be available for download. If you’re able, please support him and this effort. We are all connected.
Well, I wish I could say I’m surprised, but no…nobody is going to design a game and give it away for free…ain’t gonna happen without some benefit for themselves. No free lunches, folks.
Here we have another case of taxation without representation…since a majority of people want this invasion of privacy to stop.
Update on this post on the power grab/information grab by Pence and his henchmen.
I found this summary of the bill– as you can see, it does not outline what information is being gathered. It does not say who is receiving this information. It does not outline how this benefits children and education. And why does the state need to provide backup when schools routinely backup their own records??
As I wrote on Diane’s blog–
It looks like Gates has his dirty little fingers in this–gathering more information for…what? or perhaps I should say…who? What kind of information are they gathering? Who will benefit from gathering this information?
The bill does not tell us. Highly suspicious.
I also found this excellent blog by Doug Martin (you might recall he posted on firedoglake).
If passed into law, HB1320 will probably hand another $3.7 million of our tax dollars to a private company which will sell off personal and confidential information of students and families to companies out to market their products and agenda to them.
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This new move is not a new one. In fact, HB1320 was probably inspired by a model bill drafted for various states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate sponsored bill-mill behind the scenes in Indiana and across the country bringing us school privatization, attacks on the postal service and unions, and the infamous Stand Your Ground Law.
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Yep. This has the smell of ALEC all over it.
Mi’kmaq Warriors will begin a speaking tour on the environmental protests against fracking, but also pipelines and tar sands.
“We are all being systematically displaced within our own traditional territories,” Patles explained. “Once they destroy our territories and these resource companies are gone, we will be the ones left with destroyed land and poisoned water.”
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Again, we have the disaster capitalism…take the resources without even paying for them, and then leave poisoned land and water. And no, I don’t think the Mi’kmaq would take money even if it were offered to them. Their spirituality cannot be bought…and the Earth is seen as connected to the Creator…
You can’t buy clean air, clean water, nor clean land after it’s been poisoned. This point seems to always be lost on politicians and energy companies who couldn’t care less what happens to people after the fact…
The Chalk Face has a video up of the Newark principals who were put on indefinite layoff (fired) for exercising their right to Free Speech. (hat tip GF Brandenburg)
This is probably the only place you’ll hear them…because no one in the mainstream media is covering this. It is a hot topic going by the amount of activity my blog has received. This should be a top story on the networks…and yet…*crickets*.
Why?
Several folks have posts up this morning on Dr. King–
I’ll start with Mercedes Schneider — it is disgusting how George W. Bush used MLK to somehow try to link No Child Left a Mind with civil rights. As we are seeing, most of the public schools being closed are in neighborhoods of the poor and minorities. An excellent point made by Joanne Barkin about how they have appointed themselves as leaders of the reform movement without the rest of us included. Our opinions don’t matter…unless, of course, we agree with them.
A quibble I have with “I Have A Dream…” is the sons of former slave owners and advocating brotherhood...what is glaringly missing are women being part of the whole.
As has been pointed out by others–Dr. King was defending workers who wished to unionize…he would have no part of the destruction of teacher’s unions.
Next, Diane Ravitch has a blog up on MLK. When breaking the law is just…if one follows one’s conscience.
Finally, Democracy Now! has a video up on MLK. When I first clicked on, I heard “I Have a Dream…” and sighed that it was going to be yet another rehash of the I have a Dream speech without reference to his other great speech, Beyond Vietnam.
http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2014/1/20
I was so glad that they aired this speech. It was so wonderful hearing Dr. King’s voice again…hard not to get emotional at the love that was flowing from him. He and John F. Kennedy were advocates of Peace working against dark forces. Both were killed for it. But as Dr. King said prophetically, he had been to the mountain top and was not afraid of the consequences of doing what he knew God wanted him to do.
I want to say something about this speech by Amiri Baraka, also on DN!
He speaks about women being raped and wanting to have reparations for it…does he not think that white women have been raped, too? Where is the white woman’s reparation?
What about the Irish slaves whom also worked for no wages? Where are their reparations? What about the Irish women whom were forced to birth babies for lighter-skinned African Americans?
The music we stole? Didn’t all music come from the great classical composers? Isn’t music supposed to be a shared experience? Did we not enjoy each other’s music and share that special connection? It is deflating to hear such anger for something we both enjoyed.
And then he says “give us our lives or be prepared to forfeit your own…”
Dr. King was against violence of any kind. I can’t see him agreeing with advocating violence.
And I don’t understand “giving” someone their life….you can’t “give” someone their life. You can’t give someone self-esteem nor a purpose in life–it has always come from within…from that connection to God (or your Higher Power).
Dr. King knew this…it emanated from him. He was solidly connected and acted accordingly. He mentions the overzealous need for material things…and questioned why someone had more than enough while others had to beg for the things they need.
Advocating violence against whites is just as bad as a KKK leader advocating violence against blacks.
I see white faces amongst the black faces in the civil rights protests. I read a story of a white guy being hosed down and beaten along with the blacks during the civil rights riots. He nearly had an eye gouged out.
Other whites wrote that they had fought alongside blacks and then were told they were not welcome anymore.
White folk were right there alongside black folk, and now it seems that part of history is being rewritten.
I know I’ll probably catch hell for writing this, but it is written with an open heart, and not meant to offend, but to question biases and prejudices….and somehow get back to that love that emanated from Dr. King. Violence, anger, and hatred don’t serve anyone. Anger is only useful if that energy is used in a positive way.
As a side note~ Dr. King spoke about them keeping Vietnam going when they knew it was wrong. I happened upon this the other day–and how Kissinger was behind the scenes prolonging the war…because he loved the power and he, Nixon, et al, wanted to “save face”. They prolonged death of our soldiers, death of Vietnamese so they could keep their reputation intact. Remember, he had stated that power is an aphrodisiac…it’s as if he thought of himself as some sort of “James Bond”….how disgusting.
This is why I love the law….if it is working properly (i.e., judges apply it fairly), then the “little guy” wins out even when being bullied by those bigger with $$ bank accounts. Woot.
Mercedes Schneider has an excellent blog up on all the twists and turns of school profiteering–who is involved, who’s making the $$ off of our kids. It’s an in-depth blog well worth the time of the read.
The comments are intelligent, as well. One of them links to this article. Bill and Melinda Gates are freaking insane. How detached from the real world does one have to be to think this is okay?? It’s not a true measurement of engagement in the lesson–it only measures arousal. The student could be thinking of something else, as one comment in the article illustrates, not what is being taught. Creepy doesn’t *begin* to describe this electronic gadget.
Note the very last paragraph where National Council on Teacher Quality, which receives funding from the Gates Foundation promotes this insanity. Remember, folks, Gates is now part of the Billionaires Media Message….gotta keep that in mind when reading anything positive on Gates, et al., because they’ve probably written it themselves or had any number of people they support financially do their dirty work for them.
Also, in the link Mercedes provided for her former post on this, is this gem:
First of all, it was Gates money that funded the inBloom data “cloud.”
Next, the sponsor of the webinar, EWA, has taken $2.7 million in Gates money since 2003.
Third, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has taken $13.5 million in Gates money. (In November 2013, I wrote this post on Aimee Guidera and DQC. Enlightening reading.)
Fourth, USDOE Assistant Secretary for Innovation and Improvement Jim Shelton used to work for Gates as the Gates Foundation director of its education division. Shelton is also a partner with the charter-market-creating New Schools Venture Fund (a connection to Education Undersecretary nominee Ted Mitchell) AND was a senior management consultant for McKinsey and Company (former employer of Common Core “lead architect” David Coleman).
Fifth, Fordham University professor Joel Reidenberg and others conducted a study on privacy issues and “cloud computing”… funded by Microsoft.
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Yep, it’s the revolving door with Jim Shelton…like the FDA. Anyone wanna bet Shelton will go back to Gates once his work to destroy public education is done?
Finally, another person posted this link of a group of Carbondale, Colorado parents getting together to fight for our public schools.
Eagle 
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