NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Another update from Brue Gagnon on the international peace conference that took place in Jeju, South Korea over the weekend. I've pasted it below: ************************* The Navy is expanding its effort to put razor wire all along the rocky coastline so the villagers cannot any longer stand on their sacred ground. But the people keep coming by swimming or on kayaks. They are determined. They continue to be arrested. As I write this a group will find their way there for the Sunday morning Catholic mass. Yesterday we had a joint meeting between the villagers and our international guests. Our folks shared stories about U.S. and NATO space technology expansion into Sweden and Norway, the effort by the U.S. to get India to create their own aggressive Space Command to help "contain" China, and the Vandenberg AFB in California space missile launching center. One elderly man from Gangjeong village told us he can't sleep at night, suffers from depression, and sees

"What is Normal?" Simon Critchley Adbusters Dec. 14, 2011 We are living through a dramatic and ever-widening separation between normal state politics and power. Many citizens still believe that state politics has power. They believe that governments, elected through a parliamentary system, represent the interests of those who elect them and that governments have the power to create effective, progressive change. But they don't and they can't. We do not live in democracies. We inhabit plutocracies: government by the rich. The corporate elites have overwhelming economic power with no political accountability. In the past decades, with the complicity and connivance of the political class, the Western world has become a kind of college of corporations linked together by money and serving only the interests of their business leaders and shareholders. This situation has led to the disgusting and ever-growing gulf that separates the superrich from the rest of us. St

Given the way that Madeleine Bordallo referenced several of her predecessors to the position of Guam's non-voting delegate to the US, I decided to go back and see if I could find any interesting archival texts from those delegates. Most of Tony Won Pat's materials are not digitized and so the little that I have from him would have to be typed out into this blog. That is something I sometimes do, but don't feel like doing this weekend. Ben Blaz, the first and thus far only Republican non-voting delegate from Guam has written extensively, most importantly about Guam's history, and so I could use something from him. Instead however I chose to post something from the most quotable person in Guam's history, Robert Underwood. A former activist, educator, politician, Underwood has written extensively about Chamorro culture, language, Guam history, political status and even politics in the US. I have 10 or so quotes from him which I constantly use to talk about everything

An update on Day 1 of the Jeju International Peace Conference taking place this weekend in Jeju Island off the coast of South Korea. The update is written by Bruce Gagnon of The Global Network. You can find more updates throughout the week on his personal blog Organizing Notes :  ****************  There is so much to write about and so little time. Yesterday we began our time here on Jeju Island (South Korea) with a conference at the museum where the story of the April 3, 1948 massacre of tens of thousands of Jeju residents is told. Following the end of WW II the U.S. took control of Korea and put the former Koreans who collaborated with fascist Japan in charge of the country. The U.S. began the process of dividing Korea and the people of Jeju were accused of being communists because they were independent minded and did not want to follow the corrupt leaders appointed by the U.S. military. The people rebelled and the U.S. military directed the new Korean government to a

My dissertation in Ethnic Studies is dedicated to three people. One is my daughter Sumåhi, sa’ guiya i mas maolek yan månnge na palao’an gi hilo’ tano’ yan gi todu estoria. The other is for my son Akli’e’. Ti sen maolek gui’ taiguihi i che’lu-ña, lao guiya I mas kinute na patgon gi hilo’ tano’. The last dedication goes to an Ancient Chamorro warrior, a maga’låhi named Chelef, who fought against the Spanish in the late 1670s and was eventually executed for his crimes against them. The dedication to my kids should obvious. I hope that in time I will be able to publish enough things so that everyone I love in my life can have something where their name and a few loving words appear in its opening pages. But why dedicate something to Chelef, a Maga’låhi who is not as famous as figures such as Hurao, Mata’pang, Kepuha or even Agualin? The reason is because of the way one of his acts against the Spanish, mirrored in a way the critical intervention I was attempting in my dissertation. In m

The full text of Congressman's address yesterday is below. I found her quotes from previous non-voting delegates Antonio Won Pat and Robert Underwood interesting. I was upset at her discussion of war reparations, for many reasons, only a few having anything to do with her. Her buildup discussion was a very cute sort of tip-toe-tight-rope walk, between addressing the needs of those at the top who still want as much "buildup" as possible, and the rest who feel mixed on the issue and aren't as sure about it. Like most politicians, the way out of this sort of quagmire is to celebrate the right of everyone to speak out and express their concerns. There was even a UOG FITE Club mention in there. I haven't talked much about the delegate race lately because it's full of some tough choices. I have known Congresswoman Bordallo for a while, and support her on some things, but not others. Senator Frank Blas Jr. is running for her seat this year and I like his rhetoric a