NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

The clock is running out for the Government of Guam to decide if they plan to appeal the recent 9th Circuit Court's affirmation of the Dave Davis case. After the federal district judge in Guam, Francis Tydingco-Gatewood ruled in Davis' favor in 2017, the government of Guam appealed. They lost that appeal earlier this year. In a few weeks the Leon Guerrero administration will reveal their plans for the Davis case and hopefully the issue of a self-determination plebiscite in general.  For those unfamiliar, the Davis case deals with a non-binding political status plebiscite codified in Guam law, that would be limited to only those who were made US citizens by the 1950 Organic Act and their descendants. Although not strictly a racial definition, the US federal courts have ruled that this classification known in Guam as "native inhabitants" is unconstitutional.  The question that remains for Maga'håga Lou now is, what is Guam's next step? As she is the head o

There are days, especially given the buffet of political rhetoric over the past few weeks, where I want to just quit my job and follow the presidential campaign in the United States full time. Normally, campaigns at this level, operate based on familiar assumptions. Very little happens, because both candidates, even if they attempt to demonize each other, accept certain basic principles about how their political positions are to be formed and defended. Bernie Sanders to some extent upset things this time around, by pushing a number of ideas and programs to the center, making the Democratic party as a whole contend with them. Trump however has changed everything, simply because of his refusal or inability to play the political games that politicians normally play. I don't mean that as a compliment, as many of his supporters like to point out. There is something attractive about that in certain candidates, as it seems like they would be able to offer a chance to break

There is so much that we can say about "terrorism." For most people this is something you connect to the most terrible acts humans can commit. You hurt people, soldiers, civilians, anything. You treat them like objects, and use them like weapons, wood to create flames from your political fire. Although we my be accustomed to conceiving that some cultures are more predisposed to commit acts of terrorism that others, in truth we find the potential for this type of human damage within all peoples. But there is generally a difference in how we assign value and meaning to these acts. Although people may articulate that there is a clear and simple truth to naming something terrorism, this is not the case. People will hedge and fudge constantly when confronted with this type of violence, depending on their relationship to who has committed it and how they see that person in terms of the ideological coordinates that form their identity. Terrorism in its most virulent form, in

The United Nations keeps a list of non-self-governing territories or places that remain colonies today that require assistance in achieving decolonization. At one point this list, after World War II, the UN recognized 72 colonies. Over the years world events and the United Nations have helped push this matter to the point where there are only 17 territories left in the world that the UN recognizes as colonies. These territories are: Western Sahara Anguilla Bermuda British Virgin Islands US Virgin Islands Cayman Islands St. Helena Falkland Islands Montserrat Turks and Caicos Islands Gibraltor American Samoa French Polynesia New Caledonia Tokelau Pitcarin Island Guam They are all primarily small islands in the Pacific and the Atlantic. Most of them are colonized by either the US or the UK. They go by many names. Territories. Overseas Territories. Possessions. Unincorporated Territories. Protectorates. It is good that

The Politics of Thanksgiving Day November 26, 2014 Thanksgiving Day is rooted in a myth of friendly cooperation between Native Americans and European settlers, celebrated a year after the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and nearly starved. But the reality was more of one-sided generosity and two-faced betrayal, as William Loren Katz explains. By William Loren Katz http://consortiumnews.com/2014/11/26/the-politics-of-thanksgiving-day/ As family excitement builds over Thanksgiving, you would never know November was Native American History Month. President Barack Obama publicly announced the month, but many more Americans will be paying much greater attention to his annual declaration of thanksgiving with the ceremonial pardoning of a turkey. Thanksgiving has a treasured place in the hearts of Americans, established as a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to rouse Northern patriotism for a war that was not going well. Since the

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon is one of the books that has had a huge impact on me. You can interpret this book to be so many things, although people traditionally focus on the call for violent nationalist revolutions as a means of decolonization. For me I have used Fanon's work, in particular this book in order to articulate so many of my own ideas about social change, in particular in Guam. He wrote a time when decolonization was a tide and it was something that he both channeled and rode. In the context of that time, but also even today when so much of the world has banished his writing to echoes of a bloody and mistaken past, there is still so much power behind them. Here is his last chapter, his conclusion to The Wretched of the Earth, which more than anything shows the humanist and idealist of Fanon, and the promise that decolonization always holds. ************************ Now, comrades, now is the time to decide to change sides. We