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Showing posts with the label Global

Local and Global

One of Chamorro singer K.C. Leon Guerrero’s most famous songs (and he totally has so many) is Guam U.S.A, which features the very catchy and memorable line that Guam is Good/ Guam is hot/ Guam is just such a little spot . Most people, even those who don’t know anything really about Guam would agree that Guam is truly just a little spot, and that in the context of global events and world history, it doesn’t really matter that much. Even for those of us who live on Guam and love Guam, we might be inclined to agree that even if this little spot is great, it’s still just a little spot. The Guam history book Destiny's Landfall for instance has a heavy ideological load to bear in terms of what story it is supposed to tell and what its own historiographical assumptions require. The book is supposed to be about Guam, it is the most comprehensive history book written about Guam up to this day, but it is also a story about Guam and its meeting with its "destiny," which over the co

Greening the Same Old Deadly Machine

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A 2007 letter from Bolivian President Evo Morales to the member representatives of the United Nations on the issue of the environment. Sister and brother Presidents and Heads of States of the United Nations: The world is suffering from a fever due to climate change, and the disease is the capitalist development model. Whilst over 10,000 years the variation in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels on the planet was approximately 10%, during the last 200 years of industrial development, carbon emissions have increased by 30%. Since 1860, Europe and North America have contributed 70% of the emissions of CO2. 2005 was the hottest year in the last one thousand years on this planet. Different investigations have demonstrated that out of the 40,170 living species that have been studied, 16,119 are in danger of extinction. One out of eight birds could disappear forever. One out of four mammals is under threat. One out of every three reptiles could cease to exist. Eight out of ten crustaceans and thre

"Futures" Conference Audio

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Its been several months now, since the Postcolonial Futures in a Not Yet Postcolonial World: Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies conference, but at long last the audio for the conference has been uploaded and is ready to be downloaded. For those of you unfamiliar with the conference, here is the mission statement below: As scholars engaged in critical social justice work, we are constantly engaged in conversations about how to push the limits of the Ethnic Studies project so that it may be used more productively in addressing the wide and varied number of student and faculty interests within the department. Although the growing interest in postcolonial and indigenous studies is exciting and holds great potential, we feel that there is an urgent need to learn beyond the caricatured and narrow perceptions that have cast these emerging disciplines as specialized fields of knowledge. It is our contention that in addressing issues of violence, oppress

My Favorite Network

Gof magof hu na hu fakcha'i este na tinige'...put fin!!!! O'sun yu' put i invisiblity -ta yan banality -ta. From http://www.commondreams.org A New Network Forms to Close U.S. Overseas Military Bases by Medea Benjamin In a new surge of energy for the global struggle against militarism, some 400 activists from 40 countries came together in Ecuador from March 5-9 to form a network to fight against foreign military bases. The conference began in Quito, then participants traveled in an 8-bus caravan across the country, culminating in a spirited protest at the city of Manta, site of a U.S. base. While a few other countries such as England, Russia, China, Italy and France have bases outside their territory, the United States is responsible for 95% of foreign bases. According to U.S. government figures, the U.S. military maintains some 737 bases in 130 countries, although many estimate the true number to be over 1,000. A network of local groups fighting the huge U.S. mili