NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Hawks, Clowns and Leaders by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Guam Daily Post August 10, 2016 I have to echo so many writers, pundits and voters this past year, who cannot help but marvel at the strange world we live in today, as a result of the Republican nomination of Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States. Donald Trump, has in so many ways pushed this election to the limits of imagination and at times common decency. His determination to attack and hit back against anyone who he perceives as wronging him has led him down the path of childishness and bullying. Trump’s behavior and his ideological inconsistency has come to the point where the terrain of ideas and allies, has shifted so drastically that those I might normally consider my foes are suddenly unexpected friends. I say this because in the current national election cycle, I myself who is a long time anti-war, demilitarization and decolonial activist find myself regularly agreeing wi

 The website Common Dreams is a very good resource for those interested in a wide range of progressive topics. You'll find Democrat politics articles, which aren't very critical or radical. You'll find pieces that both support Israelis right to defend itself but also condemn it as a nation that is perpetuating genocide and colonialism. There is plenty of environmental coverage and economic justice news on everything from unions, to climate change, to resource wars. For me personally, as someone who comes from an island in the Pacific that is known as the tip of the spear and an unsinkable aircraft carrier, I truly appreciate the coverage that Common Dreams provides on militarism, in particular American militarism. Naturally, their lens for filtering through the possibilities of news focuses primarily on the hotspots where Americans troops are currently bombing, fighting and occupying and so it doesn't attend much to places where the bases have existed for a long

For the recent exhibit I worked on, Sindalu: Chamorro Journey Stories in the US Military, I wanted to make certain that the story we told included the experiences of Chamorro women in the US military. This turned out to be more difficult than I initially imagined. Chamorro women have served in the US military since the Korean War, but it is only recently that people really recognize that they are a central part of the military. This isn't just on Guam, but throughout the United States, women have served for a long time, but are always thought of as being supplementary, extra bodies, hence there is often ridiculous irritation when they demand certain rights or demand to be treated fairly. For most people the military is a man's domain, and so women are generally seen as weakening the grand military phallus of the nation, with their complaints about harassment, rape and lack of equality. Women who have served in the US military

Friday, February 14, 2014 by Common Dreams Now Presenting.... The Activist Awards by Ralph Nader     The Kodak Theater in Los Angeles where the Academy Award ceremonies are held. (File) The annual Academy Awards GALA, viewed by one billion people worldwide, is scheduled for the evening of March 2, 2014. Motion pictures and the people who act in and produce them are center stage. Apart from the documentaries, this is a glittering evening of “make-believe” and “make business.” Now suppose our country had another Academy Awards GALA for citizen heroes – those tiny numbers of Americans who are working successfully full-time in nonprofit groups to advance access to justice, general operations of our faltering democratic society, and the health, safety, and economic well-being of all citizens. This must sound unexciting in comparison with the intensity of the world of film. Until you see what th

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.

Since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan two weeks ago, Guam has been worried about the possibility of nuclear radiation getting into Guam from either the water or from cargo from Japan. People are even concerned about swimming in the water in Tumon or on the western side of the island out of fear that the water might be contaminated. Although almost everyone seems to say that Guam will most likely not be affected by the reactor problems in Fukushima, the issue is still an important once because it strikes at the core of whether or not nuclear energy can be considered a "safe" or "clean" technology. The fact that Japan developed nuclear power has always been somewhat controversial, because of how how radiation and nuclear weapons were used against them in World War II. But Japanese governments for decades have always been very clear that nuclear power was safe and clean and that there was nothing to worry about. That rhetoric has been sorely tested in the past tw

Magof-hu na ma ilihi Si Obama giya Amerika. Para meggai na diferentes na rason, hu sappote gui’ yan ya-hu gui’. Lao yanggen mismo Guahu la’mon, ga’0-ku na Si Ralph Nader u Presidente Amerikånu. Mas maolek i hinasso-ña, ya mas umaya iyon-måmi na idea siha, kinu iyon-måmi yan Si Obama. Fihu mama’liliberal Si Obama, lao puru ha’ liberal Si Nader. ************************************** Dear President Obama: Underneath many of our country's economic problems is the thirty-year collapse of consumer protection-both of the regulatory kind and of the self-help kind known as proper access to justice. Last month major consumer groups sent you a letter proposing action to rein in exploitation of consumers as debtors, as buyers of oil, gas and electricity, as patients needing health insurance and as eaters wanting safe goods. Under the Bush regime, the words "consumer protection" were rarely uttered and the Bush administration almost never initiated any pro-consumer efforts, eve