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Tagged ‘Anti-Indian Movement‘

CWIS [Center for World Indigenous Studies]

Salish Sea Maritime

April 27, 2017

by Jay Taber

 

 

Research and education on indigenous issues in the Salish Sea region is supported by the Center for World Indigenous Studies in Olympia, Washington–a non-profit established by leaders of the Assembly of First Nations and the National Congress of American Indians.  CWIS, an indigenous academic institution that has served Coast Salish Nation since 1979, is the premier indigenous think tank in the world.

In addition to research and education, CWIS publishes Fourth World Journal and Intercontinental Cry magazine. In April 2013, IC magazine was the first in world media to expose a nationwide campaign by CERA – “the Ku Klux Klan of Indian country” — to terminate American tribes.

In the Fall of 2013, IC, Public Good and Wrong Kind of Green collaborated on publishing Communications in Conflict, a primer on netwar–shorthand for networked psychological warfare. In April 2016, WKOG published Netwar at Cherry Point, what Noisy Waters Northwest described as “a detailed and important accounting of three years of research on matters related to the Anti-Indian movement in Whatcom County, Washington.”

Documenting the Dark Side, a vastly underappreciated aspect of research and education, allows tribal leaders and moral authorities to more effectively confront promoters of interracial discord, such as SSA Marine and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. It also helps to expose misleading campaigns by fossil fuel export developers like BP.

Fourth World Geopolitics is poorly understood by both mainstream media and academia. Enlightening them to the social, economic and political realities of indigenous nations is the purpose of CWIS.

 

[Jay Thomas Taber is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, a correspondent to Forum for Global Exchange, and a contributing editor of Fourth World Journal. Since 1994, he has served as communications director at Public Good Project, a volunteer network of researchers, analysts and journalists engaged in defending democracy. As a consultant, he has assisted indigenous peoples in the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations.]

Promoting Interracial Discord

Public Good Project

By Jay Taber

 

Lummi Image 12

Photo: Canoe and Bulk Carrier at Cowichan Bay, B.C. © 2008 klahowya.ca

 

For readers who might wonder why I make a big deal of “the appalling disrespect of Pacific International Terminals and BNSF Railroad toward the citizens of Whatcom County and Lummi Nation over the last five years, as well as the reprehensible behavior of Gateway Pacific Terminal spokesman Craig Cole” in my op-ed at Cascadia Weekly (Apr. 13, 2016 issue), the short answer is my twenty years of experience dealing with violent white supremacy instigated by industrial developers, a.k.a. Wise Use terrorism.

While some might think that “the sinister desecration of the sacred Lummi burial ground at Cherry Point in the dark of night” or “the lavish funding of Tea Party-led PACs run by KGMI hate radio hosts” or “the repeated corruption of elections year after year through money-laundering with the Republican Party” or “the intimidation and libeling of journalists that exposed their ongoing nefarious deeds” or “promoting interracial discord and anti-Indian resentment” is no big deal, allow me to explain why I think it is.

As you can read in my comment on a March 12, 2016 news story at Northwest Citizen, Sandra Robson, a former correspondent to Whatcom Watch, was recently named the Paul de Armond Citizen Journalist of the year for outing Pacific International Terminals and BNSF Railroad, who financed a CERA-promoting, Tea Party led-PAC to attack Lummi Nation for its opposition to the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal coal-export facility. CERA, for those unfamiliar with the acronym, is Citizens Equal Rights Alliance, “the Ku Klux Klan of Indian country”.

Paul de Armond, former Public Good Project research director (who passed away in 2013), in the 1990s contributed to the apprehension of people engaged in violent intimidation of Indian treaty proponents and human rights activists. Seven of the white supremacist militia members Paul (and I) helped expose were, in 1997, convicted in U.S. District Court in Seattle for manufacturing bombs and machine guns to commit murder.

The militias had been hosted in Whatcom County by Wise Use organizer Skip Richards, a paid agent of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County. More recently, Mr. Richards and Minuteman militia member Tom Williams of Lynden were the organizers of the April 6, 2013 CERA anti-Indian conference in Bellingham, Washington.

In February 2014, Sandra Robson was threatened with a SLAPP suit by Gateway Pacific Terminal spokesman, Craig Cole, over her January 2014 Whatcom Watchcover story. In October 2015, Robson came back fighting with an IC Magazinefeature story.

The full story of this injustice, perpetrated by some of the largest corporations in the United States, is told in my April 2016 Wrong Kind of Greenspecial report.

 

[Jay Thomas Taber is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies and communications director at Public Good Project, Email: tbarj [at] yahoo.com Website:www.jaytaber.com]

 

Further reading: Coast Salish Gathering briefing on treaty rights (2013): for-publication-april-2013-protecting-treaty-rights-sacred-places-and-lifeways

Wise Use Terrorism – Craig Cole’s Anti-Indian Campaign

Intercontinental Cry

September 22, 2015

by Jay Taber

 

The Wise Use Movement, a fascist movement of industrial-sponsored terrorism against environmentalists and Native Americans, has a thirty-year history of fomenting violent interracial discord aimed at intimidating activists, journalists and public employees. With funding from industry, the Anti-Indian Movement in turn promotes Wise Use propaganda, organizing hate campaigns to capitalize on white supremacy and religious bigotry.

The Wall Street/Tea Party Convergence in the fossil fuel export war on the Salish Sea, using counterfeit front groups and political action committees, is a textbook example of Wise Use netwar (networked psychological warfare) exploiting organized racism. Gray ops (misleading propaganda) and black ops (counterfeit front groups) make it possible for Wise Use fossil fuel export developers to confuse mainstream media, and in conjunction with bribery through advertising, ensure that only the industrial point of view is represented in the corporate mainstream news.

Drumming up resentment against environmentalists and American Indian tribes, however, has repercussions. From 1992 to 1996, Wise Use ideologues and agent provocateurs (funded by developers) hosted Christian Patriot militias to intimidate their political opponents. In 1997, militia members from Seattle and Whatcom County, WA were convicted of firearms and explosives charges in U.S. District Court, where it was revealed they planned to murder human rights activists.

As noted in Fossil Fueled Fearmongering, political action committees, funded by Wise Use developers proposing a coal terminal at Cherry Point, capitalized on promoting interracial discord in conjunction with CERA (the “Ku Klux Klan of Indian Country”), KGMI radio and the Tea Party. In her September 14, 2015 article Creating Something Out of Nothing: Craig Cole and the Northwest Jobs Alliance, Dena Jensen examines the latest in netwar waged by SSA Marine against Lummi Nation and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians.

While not a new phenomenon, The Politics of Land and Bigotry feeds on a growing politics of fear promoted by PR people like Craig Cole and his employer, Pacific International Terminals. As a rationalization of theft, Fascism in America includes both Wise Use and Christian Patriots (the people responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing), who share a willingness to use violence to maintain power and privileges based on wealth or race.

 

 

[Jay is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, a correspondent to Forum for Global Exchange, and a contributing editor of Fourth World Journal. Since 1994, he has served as communications director at Public Good Project, a volunteer network of researchers, analysts and activists engaged in defending democracy. As a consultant, he has assisted indigenous peoples in the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations. Email: tbarj [at] yahoo.com Website: www.jaytaber.com]