Americas

George Washington could hardly be called naive about the use of military power. Yet, in his presidential farewell address, the general-turned-political leader issued a warning that would be wise to reconsider since the United States began pursuing a foreign policy based on preventive war and a crusade to spread democratic capitalism worldwide.

Imagine a village with all its children gone. For aboriginal peoples all across Canada, this was their lived reality, not the stuff of imagination. The story of what happened to the children – who were forcibly removed from their families and sent to military-style camps that were euphemistically called “schools” – has at last been told, compiled in the monumental six-volume Truth and Reconciliation Report released in 2015.

A new history of the United States from Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, titled An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, discusses and illuminates what may be the most obvious and complete expression of Kurtz’s sentiment—the genocidal destruction of the indigenous peoples of North America.  This genocide was close to total. 

In an effort to raise awareness about the March 22nd Caucus in Idaho more than 1,500 Idahoans gathered in Boise on March 12th and took to the streets to support 2016 Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

A few numbers begin to reveal why Honduran indigenous leader and global movement luminary, Berta Cáceres, was assassinated on March 3, 2016. According to the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), more than 300 hydroelectric dams are planned for Honduras, of which 49 are on COPINH lands.

Under the crust of that portion of Earth called the United States of America—“from California . . . to the Gulf Stream waters”—are interred the bones, villages, fields, and sacred objects of American Indians. They cry out for their stories to be heard through their descendants who carry the memories of how the country was founded and how it came to be as it is today.