Guarani-Kaiowá Leader Killed in Retaliation for Land Reoccupation

On August 30, 2015, Semião Fernandes Vilhalva, an indigenous leader of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe, was killed in the town of Antonio João, which is 402 miles from Campo Grande, the capital of Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso do Sul (MS). The state is in the west of Brazil, on the border of Paraguay and Bolivia.

The murdered indigenous leader, Semião Fernandes Vilhalva, at the time was involved in mobilizing a lands reoccupation. He “actively participated in efforts undertaken for the recognition of indigenous territories and the recognition of the lands of the Guarani-Kaiowá people,” according to the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.

Vilhalva’s murder is part of a chain of such murders of indigenous leaders. Pierce Nahigyan of Planet Keepers describes Ambrósio Vilhalva and Marinalva Manoel, both Guarani-Kaiowá leaders:

Ambrósio Vilhalva was a Guarani leader who spent decades campaigning against the planting of sugar cane on his tribe’s former lands. Vilhalva starred in the award-winning film Birdwatchers and traveled the world to speak about the Brazilian government’s failure to protect native Guarani land. In December 2013, after months of death threats, Vilhalva was found dead in his hut from multiple stab wounds. See video on Ambrósio Vilhalva, murdered Guarani leader

Marinalva Manoel was also a leading figure in the Guarani Indian repatriation movement. In November 2014, she was found dead on the side of a highway after being raped and stabbed to death. Read article on Guarani murdered leader Marinalva Manoel

And the list of murdered Guarani leaders goes on. Hermano de Melo, in a Sept. 13, 2015 article on the Brazilian site Environmental Racism, continues the lamentable list. De Melo alleges that there is a pattern of murders associated with reoccupation of lands. In a reoccupation of the Terra Indígena Buriti (Buriti Indigenous Territory), Oziel Gabriel, 35, murdered in Sidrolândia (Mato Grosso do Sul) in May 2013. The Guarani-Kaiowá Chief, Nísio Gomes, was murdered in the Guaiviry encampment, in Aral Moreira, MS, on the border that Brazil shares with Paraguay on Nov. 18, 2011.

It would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the local ranchers regard it as a legitimate strategy to systematically murder the Guarani-Kaiowá leaders as a way of stamping out land disputes over ratified lands.

In 2005, the Brazilian government indeed ratified 10,000 hectares as the possession of the Guarani-Kaiowá. Yet local ranchers petitioned to have this decision overturned. As a result, the 2005 possession was never transferred. Instead, 9,317 of these hectares were divided into nine ranches, which were given into the possession of local ranchers, who now own the land, and are reluctant to give it up. The ranchers hear “reoccupation” but call it the “invasion” of indigenous people.

The remaining 150 hectares, which amounts to just .58 of a square mile, are all that the Guarani-Kaiowá have had to live on. They live in such a state of overcrowding that malnutrition, illness, and suicide have abounded. As a result, some members have squeezed onto the edge of local highways to live—as you can imagine, a precarious and dangerous situation. According to the NGO CIMI, cited in an article by Planet Keepers, 72 Guarani-Kaiowá committed suicide in 2013, “equivalent to 232 deaths per 100,000, a rate ‘that has nearly tripled over the last two decades,’ says Survival International.”

And thus, on August 30, 2015, after decades of inaction by the Brazilian government to enforce the 2005 legal demarcation of the Guarani-Kaiowá territory, Semião Vilhalva and other people of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe were engaged in a reoccupation of the lands that had been legally deeded to them in 2005. In the town of Antonio João, people of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe mobilized to reoccupy the lands that the Brazilian government had ratified for them—-those 10,000 hectares.

In response to the indigenous reoccupation of 4 ranches deeded to them in 2005, on Aug. 30, 2015, "about 100 people in trucks approached the Barra and Fronteira ranches, in the town of Antônio João, in order to retake the area which they view as having been invaded by the indigenous peoples," according to the newspaper Correio do Estado, which is based in and covers news based in Mato Grosso do Sul.

As the ranchers and the indigenous gathered on the disputed lands were facing off, Vilhalva, 24 years old, was searching for his 4 year old son in the crowd. He was standing on one side of a stream when, from the other side of the stream, according to the indigenous account, a gunman hired by the ranchers fired a 22 caliber revolver. The bullet hit Vilhalva's face, then exited his neck. Vilhava never found his son. As for the ranchers' account, the ranchers claim, improbably, that Vilhalva had died earlier that week and his body had only been transported to the area, and they claim it had already begun to show rigor mortis. However, the police report negated this fabrication, finding no rigor mortis on the date of the confrontation, and citing the date of death as Aug. 30. On Sept. 2, Semião was buried, attended by mourners, including his wife.

Not one person from the town who wasn’t indigenous attended the funeral, an indication of how far the two communities are from understanding one another. The climate between them is hostile, and it looks like the Federal Police are biased; Midiamax, a local newspaper, reported that the Federal Police were giving an escort for ranchers to deliver food, while the indigenous in the face-off went without escort and thus were going hungry.

Though the Federal Police have come to the area, the attacks against the indigenous have continued. According to the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, more attacks have occurred:

Attacks against the Guarani-Kaiowás continue even after the killing of Mr. Semião Fernandes Vilhalva. The Nanderu Marangatu territory was attacked again on August 30 by 60 gunmen, who entered the land shooting against children, elderly people, women and indigenous men. On September 3, 4 and 5, another Guarani-Kaiowá territory was targeted by the farmers, Guyra Kamby’I, which was attacked with fire conflagration and gun shooting.

In the photo above, leaders from 6 indigenous peoples gathered in protest of the murder of Vilhalva (Guarani-kaiowá, Terena, Munduruku, Baré, kambeba e Baniwa). Their sign reads: "We are not invaders. We're taking back what is ours!"

The Guarani-Kaiowá need long term legal protection. The Brazilian Government needs to protect their territory—those 10,000 hectares that need to be legally demarcated, again as in 2005. At this writing, the Guarani are in an unsustainable situation, and lies are being circulated by and in the media to justify the attack against Vilhalva and the Guarani.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders urges the following actions to pressure Brazilian authorities to act to protect the Guarani-Kaiowá in this increasingly hostile situation:

Actions requested:

Please write to the authorities in Brazil, urging them to:

i. Carry out an immediate, thorough, impartial and transparent investigation into the above-mentioned events in order to identify all those responsible, bring them before an independent tribunal, and sanction them as provided by the law;
ii. Move forward in the processes of Guarani-Kaiowá land demarcation, as delays in the finalization of such processes results in legal uncertainty and insecurity regarding land ownership and foster increased violence in land dispute;
iii. Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of all human rights defenders in Brazil, including in particular land rights defenders;
iv. Conform to the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998

Addresses:

• H.E. Ms. Dilma Rousseff, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Palácio do Planalto, Praça dos Três Poderes, 70150-900, Brasilia DF, Brazil.
• Mr. Gilberto José Spier Vargas, Secretary for Human Rights, Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic, Setor Comercial Sul - B, Quadra 9, Lote C, Edificio Parque Cidade Corporate, Torre A, 10º andar, Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brasil - CEP: 70308-200. Email: direitoshumanos@sdh.gov.br; snpddh@sdh.gov.br. Twitter: @DHumanosBrasil
• Ms. Izabella Mônica Vieira Teixeira, State Minister of the Environment, Ministry of the Environment, Esplanada dos Ministérios - Bloco B, CEP 70068-900 - Brasília/DF, Brazil. FAX: 2028-1756. Email: gm@mma.gov.br Twitter: @mmeioambiente
• Mr. João Pedro Gonçalves da Costa, President of the Indian National Foundation (FUNAI), SBS, Quadra 02, Lote 14, Ed. Cleto Meireles, CEP 70.070-120 – Brasília/DF, Brazil, Email: presidencia@funai.gov.br.
• H.E. Ms. Regina Maria Cordeiro Dunlop, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations in Geneva, Chemin Louis-Dunant 15 (6th Floor), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland. Fax: +41 22 910 07 51, Email: delbrasgen@itamaraty.gov.br
• H.E. Mr. André Mattoso Maia Amado, Ambassador, Embassy of Brazil in Brussels, Avenue Louise, 350 B-1050, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Fax: +32 2 640 81 34, Email: brasbruxelas@beon.be

Please also write to the embassy of Brazil. Click here to find the email of the Brazil embassy closest to you

Watch BBC Video on the Murder of Semião Fernandes Vilhalva

Horses & Other Animals of the Valley Fire

My heart has hurt to see pictures of frightened horses fleeing walls of flame in the Valley Fire in Lake County, CA, as well as surrounding Sonoma and Napa counties. The fire has now burned 73,700 acres, and is just 35% contained at this writing.

My mind has boggled to imagine how animals would flee such a massive and rapidly jumping fire: Could they run or fly that far?

Last year, I sat in the countryside of Middletown, and listened to the symphony of birdsong, a weaving of spirit through the landscape, from grasses to bushes to trees that are habitat to a multitude of animals.

It lead me to consider that we ourselves have had a hand in animals of all kinds losing their homes in the Valley Fire and fires all across California and the West. With the larger cause of the drought our own human-caused climatic impacts, our failures have resulted in the robbing of home to all sorts of animals, human, equine, ornithological.

I wince to consider the tree homes of the woodpeckers I heard pecking last year: Which trees will they lodge in now?

The New York Times reported on a coordinated, local effort to rescue livestock. Some stayed behind in the fire to save their animals as we see in "Trio Saves Horses From Worst Of Valley Fire" by CBS Sacramento.

I reached out to my friend, equestrian heroine Alison Martin, asking how I could help animals affected by the Valley Fire. She put me in touch with Sonoma Equine Rescue Rehab And Adoption. Though their name indicates a Sonoma county affiliation, they are rescuing horses from the Valley Fire, 200 at present, with more coming in each day.

Until these rescued horses are reunited with their owners, the horses need to be fed. SERRA is appealing for donations of hay to feed the rescued horses. They write: "Supplies are few!" I just donated. You may donate here to help the rescued horses of the Valley Fire.

Quan Yin in the Valley Fire

I meditated many times on a bench before this statue of Quan Yin, just having emerged from an ice cold pool (and just before that, a very hot pool).

Cross-legged on the bench before Quan Yin, I shivered into insights, sometimes staying there meditating for thirty minutes or more. She seemed to look on with benevolence. The light, petals of slim sun, flickered through the grove. The more goose bumps emerged as I breathed steadily, the more insights descended. In her upturned hand, flowers someone had placed with care, above the lip of her hallowed flask. In there, held against her chest, carefully guarded, delicately poised, the secret waters of healing.

Now Harbin Hot Springs, where this grove is found in Middletown, CA, has burned down in the Valley Fire, according to the LA Times.

My condolences and prayers for the entire Middletown and Hidden Valley Lake communities, including the Middletown Rancheria of the Pomo Indian community. May those who have lost their homes be offered comfort, care, and prayers. Let us say a special prayer for the animals, especially horses, who were left behind in the rush to evacuate this rapidly moving fire. May they move to safety as best they can.

Água Mole, Cidade Dura - São Paulo Graffiti Art on the Drought

Graffiti artist Thiago Mundano has a show on July-August 2015 in São Paulo at the King Cap Graffiti Shop & Gallery about the water crisis in São Paulo and beyond. The show title, "Água Mole, Cidade Dura" could be translated as "Soft Water, Hard City." Many of his images are from the sertão, the desert-scrubland in the interior. The sertão includes areas which are devastated by the lack of water, causing agricultural workers to consider migrating to the cities as a result of the failure of crops. See the video Brief video of Graffiti artist Mundano

Canvases are so green, when his subject is the lack of green due to the drought.

This painting shows protesters holding up various signs related to the lack of water, imposed reductions in water use, and the hydroelectric plant crisis. One sign says: "Water isn't Merchandise."

A painting shows a cactus in the sertão with a faucet attached to it and a mug below. Behind, the land is dry and cracked. And in the distance, the city in horizon.

See the video Brief video of Graffiti artist Mundano

Read more in English on Mundano's art and the São Paulo water crisis

Beautiful Bees at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, CA

Here's a pretty video on diversifying crops--varying hedgerows of flowers with different vegetables--in order to keep bees alive and healthy. UC Berkeley's Claire Kremen makes her point well when she asks, "You wouldn't want to have to eat almonds all day, would you?" She's referring to the fact that 80% of the world's almonds are grown in California, and bees are trucked the length of the state in order to pollinate crops. So many of them die along the way--increasingly more.

Instead, at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, depicted in this very pretty video, they choose to carefully plant hedgerows of beautiful, varied flowers that the native (non-imported) Californian bees can sip on for a varied diet, thus keeping them healthy and content.

I haven't seen this many bees up close in a while, and I found their little golden bodies truly entrancing and endearing as they slowly sip the painted flowers. I liked seeing Mark Bittman, New York Times food critic, who's usually opinionated to the point of abrasive, dumbstruck by his fellow buzzing creatures.

I have to admit that I also didn't know the definition of a pollinator, which Kremen gives: it's any animal--moth, bird--that transports pollen between the male and female parts of the flower. This sounds like such an important job! A golden monk's duty. Thank you, bees. Dare I say that the bees at Full Belly Farm look very happy? Yes, I can tell a bee's expression--can't you?

Watch the bees at Full Belly Farm video here

F--- - The Cup?

Mixed feelings about the World Cup. Totally excited to see Brazil and Colombia play. However, I’m dismayed at the manner in which protests at the start of the cup were brutally put down--to the point that we don’t see such protests now. Military force effectively created a climate of fear, which suppressed protest.

This might not be so worrisome if we hadn’t noticed other recent antidemocratic moves: for example, when the Supreme Federal Tribunal ignored constitutionally required processes of consulting indigenous people before approving enormous hydroelectric projects, including Belo Monte Dam.

According to the People’s Portal of the Cup, “the level of political repression of protestors during the 2014 World Cup, put on by FIFA, has proved to be beyond the level acceptable in a democratic state.” (July 1, 2014) Read more in Portuguese.

Here's a poem by my friend, Alex Simoes, poet & activist. Even before the cup, he and other citizens of Salvador, Bahia, were struck by tear gas as they tried to protest.

hell, I’ll tell ya, fuck the cup! “damn,
you’re messed up.” I’ll tell all, notwithstanding
I have so many reasons for screaming thus,
that it makes me happy to not have near at hand

such a grenade. skin open
& tears spouting are not the whole of the complaint.
it’s that I’m run rough trying to express
myself where, on the contrary,

protest is not possible. only because “in the end
it’s one immense political boondoggle”: coverup.
hell, I’ll tell ya, “there’s no need

for the use of bombs for moral effect
nor deployment of tear gas as a creed.”
yup, I say: fuck the world cup.

This World Cup in 2014 in Brazil has cost more than the last 4 World Cups--why?

ora (direis), foda-se a copa! “certo,
perdeste o senso”. e eu vos direi, no entanto
que para assim gritar eu tenho tantos
motivos, que me alegra não ter perto

de mim uma granada. o peito aberto
e a lágrima escorrendo não é quebranto,
é que tenho passado pelo aperto
de me manifestar onde, no entanto,

não é possível. só porque, “no fundo,
tudo é uma imensa ignorância política”,
ora direis, “que não é nada crítica

a utilização de bombas de efeito
moral e o gás lacrimogênio é bem feito”.
eu digo: foda-se a copa do mundo.

Before World Cup, Forced Removals of Salvador, Bahia Residents

You’ve probably heard about street protests in Brazil around the World Cup. But what exactly are the protesters’ complaints? One critique that hasn't reached the global media, but has been much discussed via word of mouth, is the following. In pre-World Cup preparations, Salvador's government conducted illegal removals of residents, sometimes to sanitize an area of poor residents. I had occasion to have a little glimpse of the “after” effect of such removals, and I'll share what I've heard from friends in the World Cup host city of Salvador.

In Jan. 2014 in Salvador, Bahia, I observed firsthand evidence that the government had cleared the area of poor residents. My hosts, Dalila Pinheiro and her partner, Sereno, were driving us along the low road that hugs the border of the Bay of All Saints. Salvador is divided into what locals call the high city and the low city, Cidade Alta and Cidade Baixa. There is actually a geographical fault that divides the two parts of the city, making the high city rise quite abruptly over the low, like a castle overlooking lowlands.

As we drove on the low road, Sereno (yes, it does mean Serene—his parents raised him in a hippie alternative community on the edge of Salvador) pointed out notable features.

Sereno gestured far up toward a structure jutting out from the steep escarpment above, and connected by a thin, high column to the lower city. This is the Elevador Lacerda, at 236 feet high the main transport between high and low city. The Elevador transports people to and from the Plaza Cairu to the Plaza Thomé da Souza, where a central market is located, and major free concerts take place. A week or so later, I would hear Brazilian pop giant Daniela Mercury play in the lower plaza.

Elevator seems a strange word for what is, since every other elevator I’ve known has been inside a building, guarded in its core. This elevator is 236 feet high, a stand-alone, straight up and down column. From its well-fortified base in the upper hillside, a long “hallway” juts straight out, in width and depth mirroring the column it adjoins, forming in shape something like half a picture frame.

Later that week after New Year's 2014, when I was up at the top of the Lacerda, waiting to go down to the Daniela Mercury concert, I stood in line with hundreds of others, the line filing through the upper hallway, surrounded on both sides by glass. The line is enough of a fixture that a small stand sells coffee, soda, and snacks for your wait. To the left was an orange smear over the Bay of All Saints. Dimly perceived was the fact of boats in the bay. The view was less than clear, as the slightly tinted glass was greased with swipes of what must have been a day of body parts nudging nearer to the would-be spectacular view.

Driving now with Dalila and Sereno below the Lacerda, I followed his finger as he pointed up the steep hill toward it. Beneath the form of the signature structure, a green lawn adjoined its base, running in length perhaps an 1/8 of a mile.

The lawn cued my U.S. self, trained to see green lawn around public edifice—say, a capitol building, a stately Frank Lloyd Wright-designed public garden—as a mark of the distinguished quality of said edifice.

“Nice!” I thought, as I craned my neck up toward the wall of the upper city edged by a swath of green unusual in Salvador.

If I’d thought a moment, I might have wondered: In a city crowded with poor, where every meter is contested and used territory, how would such an unfenced section of lawn have come about, here in the center of Salvador?

The unasked question found its answer in the next moment. Dalila explained that the government had expelled the poor families who had been living in crowded buildings, which were razed. The relatively tidy green, to which my U.S. self responded as a marker of beauty and social order, in fact indicated the opposite, an unseemly uprooting of families, many of whom had been living in the spot, growing community for generations. These families had been on this spot in the descriptions of novelist and son of the city Jorge Amado, who wrote his famous novels on the city and its denizens.

According to my friend, Salvador resident, writer and activist Alex Simões, the residents were removed in the middle of the night from their houses. He cites about 70 persons being removed from their houses in the area around the Ladeira da Preguiça, made famous by Brazilian classic singer Elis Regina. A ladeira is a very steep street, a kind of alleyway. The city government claimed, as pretext for the residents’ expulsion, that the path moving through the community had been unsafe and filled with crack users. My friend, poet Nilson Galvão, also a Salvador resident, adds that he heard that some of the people removed in the middle of the night were taken to shelters. Alex reports that some others are in very simple hotels (probably our equivalent would be SROs or boarding houses), which, for now, the city is paying for.

After this first wave, uprooting families who had lived in the area for generations, the city implemented other actions to clear the area. I was shocked to hear from Alex Simões that the city arranged for a big truck to go through the streets, literally washing, with high force water jets, the streets. Anyone living on the streets was literally washed away. As Alex ironically noted, "Solution: no beggars in the city center." And then, quickly were put on the city's books two ordinances that allow for dozens of buildings to be appropriated "for public ends." Public use for these cleared-out buildings has yet to occur, leading Alex to suspect collusion between city government and private hotel companies, which have long wanted to create a hotel zone of this area.

Dalila reports that, since I visited, even more removals have occurred around the general area of the Avenida Contorno, near to the Marina Bahia. The removals include the Ladeira of the Mountain. When I told her I couldn't find much online to do with the removals, she noted that this is not by chance, as the media channels in Salvador have observed a blackout on the theme.

These removals in Salvador are part of a larger trend of pre-World Cup actions. According to the Portal Popular da Copa in an article dated March 4, 2014, on that day in the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Giselle Tanaka, from ANCOP (National Articulation with the Public Committees of the Cup), would present briefly on forced removals made in the context of preparation for the World Cup and for the Olympics. ANCOP would ask the Council to demand that the Brazilian government stop all forced removals of people, make a plan to give removed residents reparations, and a plan to guarantee human rights in the future in unforseen removals by act of nature. To read more in Portuguese, click here.

Later that week in Jan. 2014, after I heard Daniela Mercury play a night concert on the Plaza Thomé da Souza, packed body to body (most of them taller than mine), I was grateful to push through the crowd to stand in line to be elevatored back. Once securely back in the Plaza Cairu, I took advantage of the sudden availability of extra oxygen, not returning right away to Dalila and Sereno's apartment in Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, but tarrying a bit on the ramparts to the side of the Elevador Lacerda. With the other night lingerers, citizens of Salvador and Brazilian tourists, I leaned against the stone wall and looked out across the distance to the little lights of small boats in the Bay of All Saints.

And every so often, which is to say often, I looked down the steep incline to the lower city, where new, white lights illuminated the bright green lawn below, impeccable as a park.

Thanks to Dalila Pinheiro, Alex Simões, and Nilson Galvão for their reportage.

Eletrosfera

A video poem by Marcio-Andre, a Brazilian performer and sound artist. The first part is a bit repetitive, but if you can hold tight, the middle and end are more active, with the words "versa" (with various meanings in Portuguese, including that of poetic verse) and "materia" (matter, subject) seeming to war with one another, in sound and space. Finally, the whole thing dissolves in a cacophony of memes. View Marcio Andre's video here.

Our Budding World: Yoga With Inner City Kids

In the capoeira class I attended today, I met a woman named Emily who teaches yoga to high school students at Emiliano Zapato Street Academy in downtown Oakland. According to Emily, the students carry some emotional challenges, and she teaches them techniques to deal with these through yoga. How beautiful! Another bright spot of hope in Oakland, and in our budding world.

Emily's work at the academy is organized by the Niroga Institute, which is a nonprofit local organization teaching what they call "Transformative Life Skills to students, vulnerable youth, cancer survivors, seniors and people battling addiction." By Transformative Life Skills they mean yoga, breathing techniques, and meditation. They cite research that teaching these techniques helps increase self-control and resilience. The Niroga Institute has an interesting "pay-it-forward" model, in which they invest in training yoga teachers with the idea that they will then offer their skills through community service to communities in need of it.

What a breath of fresh air. As someone who has attended yoga classes for years, I love the idea of that yoga is not a skill for the elite only, but is meant to be shared with all in need.

According to the Institute:

Niroga has trained over 200 Yoga Teachers, including many of color, to serve vulnerable populations with cultural congruence and linguistic sensitivity. We have also trained over 100 adult providers, such as educators and mental health professionals, who work with youth in structured settings such as schools and juvenile halls. In a few hours, we can train anyone in these transformative skills, which can be used for personal stress management and self-care, as well in professional settings with students and clients.

Our programs are part of a cost-effective front-line prevention and intervention strategy for violence reduction, education and mental health, and positive youth development. Niroga also trains minority young adults to become Certified Yoga teachers, prepared to serve their own communities with cultural competence and linguistic sensitivity.

See a video on Niroga's amazing work with inner city kids (I cried!)

If Walmart Were A Country: Playing Monopoly

Here is some accidental poetry from Christopher Petrella in Nation of Change (comparisons via Business Insider's June 2011 report):

If Wal-Mart were a country
Its revenues would exceed the GDP of Norway,
World's 25th largest economy.
Yahoo is bigger than Mongolia,
Visa is bigger than Zimbabwe,
Nike is bigger than Paraguay,
McDonalds is bigger than Latvia,
Amazon.com is bigger than Kenya,
Apple is bigger than Ecuador,
Ford is bigger than Morocco,
Bank of America is bigger than Vietnam,
General Electric is bigger than New Zealand,
Exxon- Mobil is bigger than Thailand,
Chevron is bigger than the Czech Republic.

Though capitalism seems to be based on a foundation of free competition, Petrella argues that it quickly leads to monopoly, which has negative effects on democratic functioning. And how quickly monopoly has risen in the financial section just in the past twenty years! He states, "In 1990, the ten largest domestic financial institutions held only 10% of total financial assets. Today they own 70%. The largest five U.S. banks now hold $11 trillion in assets."

His suggestion? We ought to divide up big banks, taking as our model the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which divided up the railroad companies not only to diminish their economic might, but also to prevent companies from "becoming so large that their political power would undermine the democratic process."
Read Christopher's article here

Protest at Belo Monte Dam Site in Brazil

On Nov. 1, a collaboration of 500 indigenous leaders, fishermen, and residents gathered to protest at the site of the Belo Monte Dam, where machinery is continuing to arrive to construct the world's largest proposed dam. The group had vowed to sit on the site permanently, but officials from the building corporation presented legal papers which effectively cleared the group off. Nonetheless, this unprecedented alliance of indigenous leaders and fishermen sat in together for 15 hours. Read more here

July 20 Reading in Berkeley

I'll be reading at Pegasus Books in Berkeley on July 20th.

Lyrics and Dirges: A Monthly Reading Series
Start: 7:30 pm
Location: Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA
(510) 649-1320 Curated by Sharon Coleman

Complete list of readers: Joseph Lease, Adam David Miller, Tiffany Higgins, Doeba Bropleh, and Claudia Castro Luna.

See Event Details, Full Bios

Wars of Choice, Wars of Need?

Today's headline in the New York Times: Looking Back, Gates Says He’s Grown Wary of ‘Wars of Choice’

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, as he prepared to depart the government for the second time, said in an interview on Friday that the human costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had made him far more wary about unleashing the might of the American armed forces.

“When I took this job, the United States was fighting two very difficult, very costly wars,” Mr. Gates said. “And it has seemed to me: Let’s get this business wrapped up before we go looking for more opportunities.”

“If we were about to be attacked or had been attacked or something happened that threatened a vital U.S. national interest, I would be the first in line to say, ‘Let’s go,’ ” Mr. Gates said. “I will always be an advocate in terms of wars of necessity. I am just much more cautious on wars of choice.”

May we remember this the next moment we're faced with a military intervention. And yet, as we recall, both the Iraq and Afghan wars he speaks of were sold very strongly as wars of need. Not wars of choice. How, at that time, could we have convinced decision makers that those were not wars of need?

Wars of choice. The phrase rings of the right to an array of choices at the heart of consumerist society. Is that what got us into this?

Monetize Your War: The $$ In Your Hometown

I stumbled upon a website that calculates the amount that you and taxpayers in your county are paying for our current wars.

In my own county of Alameda, CA, we will pay $1.1 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan war costs -- just for 2011.

The number of $1.1 billion (for just one county!) made the war suddenly so concrete to me, and made clear what we're not paying for at a local level as a result: the teachers, police, low-income health care, Pell grants, scholarships, that have been cut from our budget.

What would our nation look like if we weren't paying for war?

Find the costs of war in your county

Lady Liberty Is A Replica

The U.S. Postal Service has just issued a new Forever stamp, with an image of what they believed to be the Statue of Liberty. Except it turns out that the image is not of the NY statue, but of a replica statue outside the New York-New York Casino in Las Vegas. The stamp image is a photograph of the replica of the monument. Whereas the original stands 151 feet, this Liberty is 100 ft. Liberty's face is shaped differently, more blocky. And do I detect in those heavy eyelids a mixture of boredom and derision? Her noble, aquiline nose replaced by slightly misshapen nostrils, this Statue of Liberty looks as if she's about to fall asleep. Liberty has grown smaller, but no one at the Postal Service (and maybe none of us) noticed the difference.

April 10 AntiWar Demonstration in SF

The United National Antiwar Committee will lead a demonstration Sunday, April 10, 2011, 11:00am (march at 1:30pm) at Mission Dolores Park, SF. It's sponsored by hundreds of social justice organizations. The poster is cool, and if you click on it, you can read the whole thing.

Green-Haired Iara in Amazon Declares Rivers Are Alive!

The Brazilian mermaid goddess Iara is alive in the Amazon! Not sighted in some years, the green haired maiden is regarded as the protector of Brazil’s Amazon region.

Recently, in Santarem, Para (Brazil), people gathered in protest at the Pan Amazon Forum, which just ended on November 29, 2010. In protest against the Belo Monte Dam (the largest proposed dam project in the history of the planet), their bodies made a human banner, in the form of the mythical mermaid, on the shore of the Tapajos River, a major tributary of the Amazon. Students were gathering signatures in protest of the more than 60 hydroelectric dams the Brazilian government plans to build.

The results of the planned dam? Not only the release of more emissions than a coal plant, not only the displacement of the traditional-living Xingu people, but, after the area is opened, the mining that is sure to follow.

The Xingu Forever Alive Movement (Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre) is not accepting without protest the planned gigantic dam to displace the indigenous tribe.

They declare: Rios Vivos - The Rivers Are Alive (see photo); the rivers are their sustenance, not only of stomachs, but of way of life, cultural traditions carried on through millennia.

Rafaela Tavares Kawasaki writes, "When an Iara dies, her river dies with her."

Rios Vivos! Read more

Interview in Poets and Artists!

I'm very honored that poet and critic Michael Parker's interview about my work appears in the September 2010 issue of the beautiful online magazine, Poets and Artists.

Parker chose my book as his Best Book of 2009!

The interview covers my book,"And Aeneas Stares Into Her Helmet" (Carolina Wren Press 2009), as well as upcoming film and music projects.

Read the interview in Poets and Artists. Scroll down to the interview on pages 24-30.

Monks as Trees, Trees as Monks

Cambodian monk Bun Saluth ordained (as if they were budding monks!) wide swaths of forest in northwest Cambodia. In doing so, he inspired local villagers to unite to protect the woodland and its animals, setting up patrols to ward off illegal logging. He was honored by the United Nations for his unique concept of preserving biodiversity.

Cornerstone of the program is livelihood diversification; various cottage industries have been cultivated, including mushroom cultivation and the collection of resin from the mouths of trees. Cutting the resin pools into the trees appears to give them black mouths, as if they were speaking!

Monk Saluth explains his philosophy: “The Buddha was born under a tree in the forest, he meditated under a tree in the forest, he achieved enlightenment under a tree in the forest and he died under a tree in the forest. You can say that the forest is the house of the Buddha. Since monks are considered sons of the Buddha, we have a responsibility to protect the house of the Buddha.”

Let's ordain! Let's see what's holy! Let's bless!

More on Bun Saluth

Costa Rican Hot Springs Sustainable Community

On my travels, I met Silvio Bonomelli, an Italian jungle man who is creating a self-sustaining thermal pool community in Costa Rica. Silvio transmits a truly inspiring vision of do-it-yourself sustainability.

There are 17 naturally occurring hot (very hot!) springs on the land, and it looks to be a paradise. Silvio is using biodynamic agriculture methods (“better than organic!” he told me), growing an incredible bounty of crops on this land: banana, chayote, avocado, coffee, and an odd assortment of shaped Christmas trees, a leftover from the previous owner. He has a good rapport with the local families, and is engaging local children in the project.

Silvio and his team are constructing this life as we speak, and Silvio welcomes people to come and see (and maybe lend an arm!)
See video of Silvio rolling through the jungle