NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Recently at the Fanhita: Our Continuing Quests for Decolonization, I and the several hundred other attendees received updates on Puerto Rico from Wilma Reveron-Collazo. Her presentation "Puerto Rico Actually" provided a powerful genealogy of Puerto Rico's movement for decolonization, as well as American attempts to keep the island colonized or to hide its continuing colonization.  Puerto Rico occupies an interesting place in the imaginary of Guam. It is a place very distant from us in geographic terms, but we nonetheless share a similar history of Spanish colonialism and a similar present of American colonialism. At a time when Puerto Rico and Cuba were developing their own nationalist and revolutionary movements, the same movements, albeit on a smaller level, were also developing on Guam. Both Guam and Puerto Rico exist in territorial/colonial relationships with the US, although they have different names. Puerto Rico is referred to as a commonwealth, although you wo

Independent Guåhan will honor the legacy of Richard Flores Taitano and discuss reforming local government in June GA Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend their June General Assembly (GA) on Thursday, June 28, from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. The educational focus for the evening will be on how Guåhan’s government can be radically reformed in an effort to provide more checks and balances and participation for the island’s residents. Media coverage and social media chatter provide regular reminders of Government of Guam corruption and malfeasance. Many feel that the levels of corruption are so high that they provide an obstacle to ever achieving independence. In this month’s GA, Independent Guåhan will discuss ways that the government of a decolonized Guåhan could be reformed to reduce corruption and also provide more means by which people can participate in the functioning of their democracy. Models from other Pac

What a strange moment we live in, where political loyalties and alliances are reforming and even crossing national and ideological boundaries in ways difficult to comprehend. When Obama says that Ronald Reagan is turning over in his grave right now because of the behavior of Republicans today and their new party leader Donald Trump, he is right in a very troubling sense. Having two main political parties is supposed to neutralize a lot of potential conflict, but also requires that the two factions ultimately hold above all partisan politics, the nation itself. In essence, like all political systems, a two-party one still requires that both parties but country first, and that be willing to accept losses for the betterment of the country and not seek all international or foreign means of achieving victory. What we see today however, is that the Republican party has been taken over by those who are willing to side with those who want to weaken American power and its place in the world,

"The Road to Nowhere" Michael Lujan Bevacqua Marianas Variety 6/12/13 Last week I wrote about “decolonization stagnation” on Guam and how for a variety of reasons the quest for decolonization, at the level of the world, the UN and the United States isn’t moving very quickly. This week I wanted to discuss more about the role of the United Nations and the United States in decolonizing Guam. Despite the fact that most people have become accustomed to speaking in universals, and speaking about this world that we inhabit, most on earth see themselves in a national framework, as attached first and foremost not to this planet, but to an imagined territory upon its surface. Because of this the United Nations can have great power symbolically, representing the world’s international potential, but has little practical value. Nowhere is this more true than for those 17 territories that the UN recognizes as still being colonized and still requiring a process of decoloniz

“Get Out the Vote” Michael Lujan Bevacqua  October 24, 2012 The Marianas Variety Daniel Ellsberg was infamous during the Vietnam War era for his releasing of documents that later became known as “The Pentagon Papers.” Ellsberg was working as an analyst for the RAND Corporation at that time and had access to numerous top-secret documents dealing with the ways in which the United States was prosecuting the war in Vietnam. Through his work Ellsberg was privy to the fact that the White House under President Johnson had systematically lied to Congress and to the American people about the war in Vietnam. It was an important moment in given some credibility to the sometimes instinctive feeling that people have that their government cannot be trusted. The Pentagon Papers proved that we often times dismiss things that have a conspiratorial quality to them precisely so we can never find out if they are true or not. Ellsberg is a hero for many progressives an

Published on Thursday, October 18, 2012 by Common Dreams Defeat Romney, Without Illusions about Obama Advice to progressives in swing states, vote for reelection by Daniel Ellsberg It is urgently important to prevent a Republican administration under Romney/Ryan from taking office in January 2013. The election is now just weeks away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally in line with mine -- progressives, especially activists -- to make this goal one of your priorities during this period. Romney and Obama exchange fingers in Tuesday night's debate. (Reuters) An activist colleague recently said to me: “I hear you’re supporting Obama.” I was startled, and took offense. “Supporting Obama?  Me ?!” “I lose no opportunity publicly,” I told him angrily, to identify Obama as a tool of Wall Street, a man who’s decriminalized torture and is still complicit in it, a drone assassin, someone who’

Published on Monday, July 4, 2011 by TruthDig.com Ralph Nader Is Tired of Running for President by Chris Hedges The most important moral and intellectual voices within a disintegrating society are slowly discredited when their nonviolent protests and calls for justice cannot alter intransigent and corrupt systems of power. The repeated acts of peaceful civil disobedience, efforts at electoral and political reform and the fight to protect the rule of law are dismissed as useless by an embittered, dispossessed and betrayed public. The demagogues and hatemongers, the purveyors of violence, easily seduce enraged and bewildered masses in the final stages of collapse with false promises of vengeance, new glory and moral renewal. And in the spiral downward the good among us are reviled as naive and ineffectual fools. There is no shortage of courageous dissidents in America. They seek to thwart the imperial disasters, looming financial insolvency and suicidal addiction to fossil fuel.

During the Hiroshima Rally for the 2010 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen bombs, as an overseas delegate I got to sit in the very front row, with a great view of every speaker who stood at the podium or almost everyone who got on stage. This meant that even with my cheap K-Mart digital camera I could still take “cool” looking shots, which would have been mediocre or impossible to discern if I had been a hundred feet or so back into the crowd. As I saw dozens of speakers cycle across the podium and dozens of activist groups from around Japan come up to present their efforts, I didn’t only take pictures of them, but also found myself taking pictures of the people who were taking pictures. For different speakers, a different, always evolving and morphing throng of people with cell phones, digital cameras and yes even disposable camera would be surging forward to get a better shot at what or who was on stage. For some there would be just a handful of picture-takers, who would l