Mar 19
20130
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
AFN Assembly of First Nations Canada Idle No More Mohawk Warriors Oka Pacifism Resistance
"What happened with Idle No More is that as it progressed, they also revealed very, very reformist politics. They started out wanting to stop Bill C-45. They began imposing all kinds of codes of conduct on people people who were attending Idle No More rallies. They’re imposing a pacifist ideology on this grassroots movement and strict legalism."
Jan 16
20130
Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
Disobedience Idle No More NAACP Resistance SCLC SNCC Urban League
"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.'
"So while some INM’ers believe they are leading a “peaceful” Indigenous Rights Revolution, they are actually benefiting from the militant grassroots resistance that preceded them, gained through blood, sweat, and tears, assaults, arrests, and in some cases death. Perhaps if they knew their history better, they would understand this."
"As I noted in my essay Power of Moral Sanction, the challenge of leadership is determining the mix, the timing and the emphasis of various tactics as a movement matures. When done effectively, they reinforce each other, and propel the movement forward. Part of any victorious movement, I should note, is a well-organized research, analysis and intelligence gathering network that constantly informs the movement’s organizers and educators. Without a built-in respect for this network, no movement can succeed."
Jan 10
20130
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.
Indeed, Gord Hill told the Georgia Straight the high-level meeting actually represents the co-optation of the grassroots indigenous-sovereignty movement by band chiefs and councils that owe their power to the paternalistic Indian Act. According to the 44-year-old Kwakwaka’wakw author of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, the Canadian government has historically used these “elites” to suppress efforts by First Nations people to fight colonialism and oppression.
"As authentic leadership reemerges among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, the role of the warrior in protecting them is perhaps the most essential calling of all time."
"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."
Nov 22
20121
liberation militant direct action (MDA) Pacifism as Pathology Resistance sabotage vivisection-industrial complex
“ 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.
Nov 22
20120
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
ALF | Animal Liberation Front Biotechnology Capitalism Corporate Media Culture Ecological Crisis neoliberalism Pacifism Pacifism as Pathology Resistance Speciesism
Dr/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."The Paralysis of Pacifism: In Defense of Militant Direct Action and "Violence" for Animal Liberation" lecture by Prof. Steve Best was delivered in an ex slaughterhouse of Aprilia - Italy - 06 September 2012.