NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Since 2003 I have had a number of uneven traditions associated with this blog. Many of these have dissipated as I have used this blog less and less, but a few I have continued to hold on to. One of the longest held traditions is "Happy US Imperialism Day!" It started as a thinking piece while I was working on my Master's Thesis in Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam. I had spent a few years reading as much as I could about Guam History. I had interviewed hundreds of elders born prior to World War II, who had experienced Japanese occupation. I had even begun working for Puerto Rican filmmaker Frances Negron-Muntaner on a documentary that would later become War for Guam. I was also spending time with activists of every stripe on Guam, trying to talk to anyone who I could find who had long been critical of the things I was just starting to learn about the historical and contemporary realities of the Chamoru people.  I was encountering the history and the present of

One of these days I'll be able to sit down and try to write out all my thoughts about what is going on with in Ferguson. It is difficult because so many issues around race, militarization, government, surveillance, privilege, oppression, justice and others are involved. There are few easy ways of unpacking it all and so one argumentative point easily leads to another and to another and to another. The few times I've tried to write out my thoughts it is like popping only a single bubble in bubble wrap. An almost impossible task to accomplish as one bubble popped easily leads to another and then another and then another and soon it is difficult to know where you started. For a poetry group that I am part of, we are planning to write poems that refer to what is happening in Ferguson. Tonight I decided to try to jot down some of my majors thoughts, and I have ended up swinging back and forth in my writing, between poetic language and theoretical language. At one point I'll

Always nice when Guam gets a mention in The Nation. ************************ Around the Globe, US Military Bases Generate Resentment, Not Security Katrina vanden Heuvel June 13, 201 The Nation  As we debate an exit from Afghanistan , it’s critical that we focus not only on the costs of deploying the current force of more than 100,000 troops , but also on the costs of maintaining permanent bases long after those troops leave. This is an issue that demands a hard look not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but around the globe—where the United States has a veritable empire of bases. According to the Pentagon , there are approximately 865 US military bases abroad—over 1,000 if new bases in Iraq and Afghanistan are included. The cost? $102 billion annually—and that doesn’t include the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan bases. In a must-read article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences , anthropologist Hugh Gusterson points out that these bases “constitute 95 percent of all the militar

Halacha, hiningok-hu este na sinangan, ko’lo’lo’na gi entre i manakhilo’ yan i mansappotte i buildup giya Guahan, “Ai gumof matahlek i chalan-ña este na buildup.” Gi i hinasson este na taotao siha, estaba gof “simple” este na buildup. Madisidi todu esta, (ya mungga chathinasso sa’ siempre ma planunuyi hit esta lokkue’), ya gaiprubecho este para i taotao Guahan, kontat ki ti manggongon hit yan ti mamaisen kuestion hit. På’go, ayu i manggof malago na u fåtto (ya u magåhet) i buildup, ma susukne i kumokontra i buildup, put i meggai na mampos annok na prublema na para u katga magi. Gi minagahet, desde 2005, ayu na prublema siha, esta manggaige guini, esta manggaige guihi giya Japan, yan esta manggaige lokkue’ giya Washington D.C. I manmalago i buildup, ti ma admite este siha, achokka’ annok, na guaha giya D.C. yan Japan ni’ ti ya-ñiha este na buildup, ya siña mas piligro gui’ kinu prubecho para Hita, ti ma admite. Instead, ma fa’finu todu. Kontra Hita ni’ sumångan na matahlek yan piligr

Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire: And Ten Steps to Take to Do So Thursday 30 July 2009 by: Chalmers Johnson | Visit article original @ TomDispatch.com However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union. According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our mil

Tonight theme for the convention looks to be military, security, having the right judgement when wielding American might and power. Once again however, I find myself out of place in the fervor of the rhetoric and the excitement of the Democrats attending. In this election, but more so in the last election the Democrats will be straddling a very thin line, trying to find a balance between being the default anti-war party, but also proving to be the most militaristically adept party, and the one who should be controlling the troops and the bombs. Coming from an island which has a far more intimate relationship to the military than any other military community (with the exception perhaps of the Marshall Islands), I'm struggling to find a place for the expression or even just mention of Guam's particular relationship with the United States military. Can any "real" "formal" American community, meaning those in states, know the feeling of being occupied in an Am