No Dakota Access Pipeline


This is the bottom line. Get off of the land of the native peoples. Over history, America has committed some horrific crimes against minority people. I have blogged about them in the past couple of weeks. Slavery is a shame we must deal with far into the future. Racism unfortunately still thrives in America. What America did and continues to do to minority people is horrific, including the rounding up and putting Japanese into camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

We should be putting all of this bigotry and racism behind us and we should be looking at people as our brothers and sisters in the family of man.  What is happening in North Dakota with the Indigenous Peoples is completely shocking. It shows that we as a supposedly civilized society have a very long learning curve. I invite you to follow the links to get the entire story. I want to say to those who won’t take the time: when Europeans landed here in America, the land was settled by many Indigenous Peoples. Did the cultures live together peacefully? No. The white Europeans wanted what the natives had. The land was coveted. The Indigenous People were demonized because they were so different. They looked different and spoke differently and they prayed differently. Mostly they lived on land that white people wanted for their own. So the tribes were almost wiped out. Most of their buffalo were destroyed. The buffalo fed, clothed and housed the people. Their land was confiscated, and both natives and pioneers were killed with constant war. It was hateful. It was racist.

 

Now, we have big oil corporations trying to re-victimize the Indigenous Peoples once gain. They have lived for over a hundred years on reservations, the little bit of land that was given to them by the Federal government. They have paperwork signed by a President of the USA giving them clear right and title to this land. We have no right to take their land away from them yet again. We have no right to destroy their sacred burial grounds. We have no right to attack their peaceful protests. Law enforcement doesn’t have the right to attack the protesters on the land they rightfully own.

 

Speak up for the rights of America’s Indigenous Peoples. They need our help.

 

Namaste

Barbara

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OccupyMARINES at Sacred Stone Camp.

THIS is the bottom line.
Dakota Access Pipeline does not own this land. Transfer Energy Partners does not own this land. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers does not own this land. Private citizens do not own this land.
They never have. None of them.
This land is native American land. This land was ceded to native Americans in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, no matter what fuckery the government attempted to do since then, and are doing now, and will attempt to do in the future.

 

“A Shameful Moment for This Country”: Report Back on Militarized Police Raid of DAPL Resistance Camp

http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2016/10/28/a_shameful_moment_for_this_country

We go to Standing Rock, North Dakota, for an update on how hundreds of police with military equipment raided a resistance camp Thursday that was established by Native American water protectors in the path of the proposed $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. More than 100 officers in riot gear with automatic rifles lined up across a highway, flanked by multiple MRAPs, an LRAD sound cannon, Humvees driven by National Guardsmen, an armored police truck and a bulldozer. Water protectors say police deployed tear gas, mace, pepper spray and flash-bang grenades and bean bag rounds against the Native Americans and shot rubber bullets at their horses. “We learned a lot about the relationship of North Dakota to Native people,” says Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth. “I was standing next to a group of teenagers that were all maced in the face. … Myself, I actually was almost shot in the face by bean bag round.”

The Reality of Black LIves Matter


 

Many are speaking ill of the organization Black Lives Matter. Many untruths are being said but these people are members of the organization and are speaking truth. I hope this will clarify issues for some people. Ultimately, I believe all lives matter. However. I do believe for America it must start with Black Lives Matter. We have been a racist country since our founding. The issue of slavery has been the ghost rattling keys in our closets.

 

I wish the Founding Fathers had succeeded in their attempts. They did try long and hard. They decided it would be a less emotional issue for Americans to handle after we had been a country for a while. They meant well. But it is still here and it is now an abyss which divides America.

 

I want this to be healed. I want an end to racism and soon. I don’t want more people to die.

 

Let today be the day you look inside your heart of hearts and find the racism that is still lingering and hiding. Pull it out, vow to look at all people as your brothers and sisters. They truly are. We are equal. Murdering each other, lynching, hating will not change the fact that all color of people are equal. We are all children of the Universe, made from the same matter as the stars. Let us accomplish what the Founding Fathers weren’t able to do: make America truly, now and forever equal. equal for all of us.

 

 

 

 

 

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A New Perspective


 

 

 

 

 

Full Poem:

 

I was not born on the upper rungs of the ladder, though I am white. My paternal grandfather raised a family of eight washing windows and I am so proud of him. He had the work ethic. My maternal grandfather went to Chicago to work during the Depression to support his immediate family and the extended family who crossed over from the old country. He was a tool and dye maker. He sent money home to Cleveland to buy food so my grandmother could cook food and feed all of them. My pride in them as people is immense and I inherited my desire to make the world a better place comes from their example.

In truth, I never talked about people of color. They were there but they weren’t people of color. They were just people we knew. Archie Bunker introduced me to racism, bigotry and hatred.

 

When I heard this young boy’s poem, I was touched. There are people who get it. And they tell  others and some of them get it and they tell others and on and on. I challenge all of you who are non-haters, non-racists, non-bigots to tell someone who you really are. Speak up. This is the time before we find ourselves in another World War. The world is shaky right now, but we can stabilize it with our voices and our actions.

We can want or even demand that our elected officials stop the racism and hatred, but it truly is our job. This is our world and we are the ones who are responsible for speaking, nay yelling, out the truth. Black Lives Matter, Women are equal even if not legally, refugees deserve compassion and assistance, women deserve equal pay for equal work, Muslims deserve to worship in their own way. Everyone does except for those who feel their way is the only right way and non-believers deserve to die.

 

I believe we can get past this without a war. I believe that love, peace, forgiveness and compassion is where we  begin.

 

Namaste

Barbara

 

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friends

       People of color everywhere are friends and share life’s ups and downs.

Marital Rape


FBI stats are that a woman is beaten every nine seconds. This is sickening and demonstrates the continuing war against women

FBI stats are that a woman is beaten every nine seconds. This is sickening and demonstrates the continuing war against women

It used to be make love not war; now it is make love not rape

It used to be make love not war; now it is make love not rape

A wedding links two people in love and in life with trust. Many times, husbands think it means that they own their wife. She is to obey and put out. One aspect that is a big part of life in a violent home is marital rape. Marital rape is a serious form of violence that can be life-shattering for the victims. Marital rape has been illegal since 1993 in every state and DC but it is not always enforced. This is always a problem with laws that protect women. They have to be enforced to be of any good in saving women’s lives. It is part of the War on Women. 

Why is there a war on women? Because we are not considered legally equal. Thanks to the suffragettes we have the vote. Up until then, women were not allowed to vote.  It took a real fight to obtain the right to vote. Women belonged in the home and didn’t know or weren’t intelligent enough to cast a knowledgeable vote.

Stop the Violence

Stop the Violence

The violence by intimate partners is physical, mental and emotional.

The violence by intimate partners is physical, mental and emotional.

Marital rape occurs when your spouse forces you to take part in any sex act without your consent. It is an abuse of power. One spouse over another. One spouse abuses power to attempt to establish dominance and control over the other. Either spouse can be the rapist. This is a form of intimate partner violence. Research shows that it can be as equally , if not more damaging to the victim as physical violence. Spousal rape can be as traumatizing to the victim as stranger rape. Part of this is that after you perform whatever sexual acts he wants, you have to lie down beside him and sleep with him and then get up with a smiling face and make his breakfast. This is really devastating to women in abusive relationships.

Marital and Date rape

Marital and Date rape

A broad definition of marital rape (legally), includes any unwanted intercourse or penetration, vaginal, anal and oral, obtained by force, threat of force, or when the wife is unable to consent. If you have experienced rape by your spouse, you have the right to make a police report. This is important if you are planning to escape. Police reports may be entered into evidence to help you with a restraining order, or a protection from abuse order. You aren’t alone. Your local domestic violence shelter can assist you through this process. Know you are not alone and he does not own you. For more information you can call the National Sexual  Hotline at 800-656+HOPE for help at any hour of the day. You can also visit the website, the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline.

Fixing the marital rape loophole

Fixing the marital rape loopholes

Use of force isn’t a prerequisite of being convicted of rape in the third degree, which means that the victim didn’t consent…to sexual intercourse with the perpetrator and such lack of consent was clearly expressed by the victims.  Many states have eliminated the loophole of being married as a defense against rape charges. It was the late 1970’s before anyone was convicted of raping his spouse in the United States. Now rape includes stranger rape and marital rape. The perpetrator will go to jail. Forced sex is not a “wifely duty”.

Marital rape statistics

Marital rape statistics

All of this twisted thinking comes from common law situations. And to add to the problem, the old common law said a husband could discipline his wife with anything as long as it wasn’t thicker than his thumb. Look at your husband’s thumb and think about what he could be allowed to use to beat you. This was what courts based their decisions on for hundreds of years. If you are abused, living in a violent home or are being raped by your husband, you do not need to live in fear. Get out. Do it for yourself and for your children. I have been writing on Domestic Violence for all of October. Please feel free to read my other blogs if you are living in fear or if you know someone who is.  I will be continuing the subject for the rest of the month. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

What do we want? We want the violence to stop

What do we want? We want the violence to stop