Silence of the Waves : Shouting At the Sea : Wabeeno Calls Out Twenty Fifteen

Twenty fifteen. The Annual Predictions : 

I am not Charlie

Welcome to the Year of the Wild Mountain Goat

Rising six degrees of Libra and a moon in twenty of Taurus….

Air and Earth. Shiny rocks. Winds filled with grit and abrasion.

Slow moving, frantic patience.

Change? Yes. With lots and lots of shadows. And never enough Cleaners.

If Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh had a baby, it would be twins, they would grow up to be Ali Bhagdadi and Dick Cheney.

Phony Courage : The Bravado of the Clueless

Killing cartoonist avenges the prophet. Yes, that sounds about right. The 1.7 quazillion Muslims tell us “it’s not me”. Of course.

The emptiness. The new normal.

Having said that, I am, myself, not Charlie. Not in any way. I see no value at all in this work of vile cartoons, regardless of the so-called subject. That 12 or more human beings gave their lives for it is tragic even while it was predictable. I am not Charlie and I am not French. The French are overdosing on Charlie.

The Pope of Rome will continue to surprise. It is going to be dangerous. For him. The other World Leaders continue to snooze. He may in fact be in some danger. Perhaps his sheer audacity will protect him. The American Indians still get nothing from the Church of Rome. Francis is making canonization of a padre in California who brutally murdered, tortured and suppressed the kind and peaceful American Indians of California for many years. How can a mad who did these things become a saint? For the American Indians, it is still the same old Pope.

The “Imitation Game” contains perhaps evidence of the most damning revelation in modern times. Proof that our leaders, our generals, our saviors are all liars. All cowards. I don’t think it has really “hit home” yet. I am waiting. For the thunder to roll. Freedom weeps; hiding in a dark shadow. All alone. This shows no sign of slowing down.

The American Political Right approaches a line, of the clearly “unspeakable ignorance” that once was preserved against, in the democratic method. It is gone. We now know where “Mister going in his black shiny car in the night”….Gray is the new azure. The sky itself is turning against us. It would seem. No discussions. No debates. No agreements. No support. No services. No mercy. No facts: the No Platform of the GOP…

Saudi Arabia : Root of Moral Darkness: Hiding in plain sight. Untouchable.

Lots of bullets. Billions of them.

The Mother Earth continues to suffer. Every animal on earth is hiding and trying to survive humanity. Many more will lose the fight this year and go extinct. Meanwhile US Senator Ted Cruz is the Chairman of the Science group (or something similar). The Great Ocean cannot breathe. She is in an illegal choke hold.

The Truth is bolemic. Starving herself. She has Friends but they are in hiding, or silenced, or in prison. Or under contract to INC, the new God.

Turtle Heart : Pantelleria Island

Winter Solstice 00:03 22 December 2014 : Ceremony Zero

Morning Fire ©2014 Turtle Heart

A ceremony we called Zero.

Up in the little Alps, in the Piemonte Region, a group of us, we people of Italy, started a 3 days ceremonial cycle with the little Morning Tobacco Fire. This simple ceremony is very ancient. It was almost certainly among the very first ways in which human beings used tobacco. Long before it was smoked, , tobacco was offered to the smoke of small fires, made in ceremony, and the mysts of the lakes and rivers when trying to find home. Tobacco started its life as food for god. Something of a mirror image to a ceremony like “communion”.

The old Indians believe each one of these  little fires has the same status as a temple in Japan, a Church in Texas, or a Pope in Rome. They are legally defined, protected, accepted and long established as one step in the order and method of tribal ceremony in North America. We start our ceremonies with this morning tobacco fire: we end the ceremony when the last person puts tobacco in that fire before going home, and the ceremony is finished. First and Last. A measure of the start, a mark of the finish.In this matter, the “we” I refer to is a reference to my own person and those teachers who have guided me to this point. We have all experienced, constructed, and studied the mystery life through these fires.

In my own thinking, I visualize a solstice as a specific moment in time, a quantifiable moment. A door that opens and can be passed through…so I have always worked as best I can to brin these ceremonies at the real time moment of a solstice or equinox. This year the winter  solstice as just after midnight. Some minutes before that we were as a group inside one sweat lodge, (25 people, more or less with several outside). We rode that sweat lodge right on through the solstice and came out the other side.

I brought forward my arguments for the value of these ceremonies; I call them as a matter of formality “correction ceremonies”. To a rather formidable wall of Intellectual Milanese, with, thank you so much, a few old friends buffered around this circle of masters of the wind. 

Dear Masters of the wind that brought you

Songs made with smoke may have carried you home

Standing Still, you are carried by a Great Wind ………lifted forward perhaps

… never motionless

questions were answered with smoke

a little talking fire offered

an opportunity with the silent mystery of 

receiving Medicine straight up from the earth

right in front of you

and all your relations

right where you were standing

a chance to step up in a visible manner

a single heartbeat of clarity

so maybe you passed on through

or maybe you missed it

you were, they would say, one of those 

who was right there

at that time

if that was really you…

The goal of the ceremony, in any event, was not to present an argument to convince anyone of anything. In the eyes of the old Indians it was behavior, not ideas, that was up for consideration.

We had good food from a fine kitchen, great beds, the great forest and mountains of that region and all the exceptional ambient of this region of Italy. It is easy to see and feel why so many fine wines come from this great ecological system. Our host, Adolfo, has established a very fine infrastructure and ambient of beauty for working in groups. Being close to a population center like Milan, with so many well-made facilities, it was really a perfect place to make this group ceremony. The land we used has been in the family of our host for 900 years. Like the old Indians, his land has deep and solid roots in his heart. 

If you want to see more about this year’s Winter Solstice, please reference this link.

Murder of Mike-Mike : No Charges

My heart, a regular human heart, is telling me that the words I am hearing, the video I am watching, that the defective police officer, white man Darren Wilson, will not be charged in the rage murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson Missouri…my heart tells me it is not right; the fix was in. It is not a bad feeling. Grief and a sadness, a pressure that really has no words to explain it, except to say that it is painful and profound. It has stopped me in my tracks. I have had to sit down and take this development into my spirit and assimilate it. Contain and move forward the outrage in the silent root of my spirit.

It is important to understand how carefully the system was manipulated to produce this result. It was a constructed result. It was not and was never intended to be a search for the truth of what happened. To the carefuk observer it is in fact entirely transparent. To those less willing to study the reason, the form, the method and the details, the outrage of this picture of the white, male, GOP political machine almost demands spontaneous combustion. The forces that have justified the murder of Mike Brown do not describe an alliance  of people who search for a form of sacred truth. It describes an alliance of control, privelage, domination and self interest. A circle of shallow, lazy, indolent social vampires bleeding our resources and principles of government of their core verification of justice. No justice at all.

What and when will the final catalyst arrive to correct and rebuild this corrupt police culture? Will it be the murder of Mike Brown by Darren Wilson? Certainly right after the carefully calculated late night announcement of the no bill of prosecution, people all over the world, in fact, started moving, started calling it out, started feeling in some form the feeling I have right now as I write this. We are seeing reactions come in from around the world. Major American bridges in the big cities have been shut down. Bridges? Is there some art of irony or a spontaneous message from the void in that information?

Every time, we start feeling that “enough is enough”, sensation. Reason tries to works its way through our minds…. yet the bodies keep falling. We all need to get somewhere further down the road than “enough is enough”. This has gone well beyond those sensations. It is hard to describe, but the point of irresistible force against immovable object has only one well-known result.

What about your life? What is hurting you right now? Society cannot really change. It can only reflect the growth and or the weakness of the individuals within it. If you could make progress in your life; progress against your own anger, your own mistakes, your own rage, or your own lies then perhaps the whole world could be set right. Perhaps. There are good and honorable people who tell us that it could happen just this way. That you could change your life and change the history of seven generations. Yet, my heart has this sinking feeling. As I write I expect a sign of relief, that my reason and description I can build up the power of hope. Again. It has not arrived.

24 Hours Later. A pause to work on assimilation.

Transcripts reveal there is NO cross examination of any witness supporting Wilson’s view of the situation. None. No pointing out prior inconsidstencies. None. The record reveals witness that support Wilson being allowed to say what they wanted to say and prosecutors ask them  nothing. Wilson himself testified. He made many questionable statements but was never cross-examined. Not one damn word of cross examination. The GJ did not hear a lot of facts about contradictory statements, not one word.

Examining the transcripts of this “investigation” is maddening. Attornies across the nation ridicule it for its clear posture as basically a defense investigation designed to exonerate Wilson…and a determined refusal to ask a single question that would show another narrative. I am not sure how such an investigation can even be called a legal investigation. It is shameful, a disgrace of reason and an absolute indifference to what most people would consider “search for truth”. It is beyond frustrating. It was a stacked deck from the first opening statement to the GJ.

Why? Why would the DA office want a violently uncontrolled officer like this one the police force? Why does the state feel it would be a disaster to indicte this police officer? What is the hidden agenda here? The facts of this case fly in the face of the orchestrated and clealy biased presentation to this GJ.

It is one thing to want to stand behind your police officers.  It is something else entirely to manipulate the legal system so obviously.

Discrepancies by the dozen are all over these statements made to the GJ and not a single question to push back at these statements. Such as Wilson said at first that he was hit 10 times by Nike Brown. He told the GJ he was hit two times. No one asked him about the differences. This theme was repeated throughout the friendly testimony of Wilson. There are hundreds, perhaps thousand by now, of blogs and information sites that poke 100 holes in this so-called investigation.

“There are inconsistencies in Wilson's story. He estimates that Brown ran 20-30 feet away from the car and then charged another 10 feet back towards Wilson. But we know Brown died 150 feet away from the car.” This is a question from the clear-eyed logic of Ezra Klein.(http://www.vox.com/2014/11/25/7281165/darren-wilsons-story-side/in/7041840). He, like so many other reasonable people, does not believe Wilson. Everyone asks why there was no questioning, no attempt to explain prior inconsistent statements?

Stress. The analysis of my stress makes me very suspicious of the focused, methodic burning of the Ferguson business district. It was impossible that it was random. You jst have to pay attention. Very a-typically, there was no police present in that area. None. So it burned and that is all the MSM is talking about today and it also justifies the deployment of even more police-military control…and it changed the subject. Quickly. Fire that could have been started by one person or even better, a few people working together who had planned ahead. Not protestors. Insurgents were they? For whose side were these fires started? Who would benefit most from these fires? These very determined, focused fires of 15 business’? There is a long history of official fires being started. And it seems, so far, that the business’ that burned wre owned by local black small business owners. Just them. If true why would that be? The information on the ground right now is very troubling. Follow the questions. Just the reasonable ones.

Stress. The behavior of really stupid people can look like a conspiracy when it is not. Sometimes it is really is. The fires, 15 of them, none with video of “protestors” standing around cheering themselves. From the US President down to the street cops, the subject was changed away from Darren Wilson, the Curious Grand Jury…perhaps even the truth.

I don’t want to rant. I can’t even bring myself to pound on the table. The feeling is one of great sadness. From over here in Italy, it looks like America is in serious trouble. This entry here is just about Mike Brown. He is just one of ten thousand sorrows. From here it does not look good.

All spiritual persons care about their homeland, about their fellow citizens. We care about the children and we care about our soldiers and police. We care about the sacred nature of each precious life. As an American Indian man, I know so many stories of sorrow, of murder, of humiliation and disrespect that all American Indians carry in their memories. Most American Indians and their victimization by the police, by the government, and by the courts is invisible. We have never had a case of police murdering an American Indian to make the national news. Ever. But I find myself caring about Mike Brown, about Alisha McBride, about Travon Martin. About poor old Eleanor Bumpers way back in the 1980s.

Prosecutor Robert McCullough has lead us all down a dark path. With studied indifference and childish calculation. Without honor. And then we all went back to sleep. I sometimes think if Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut did not change anything, what hope does the future really have? The record of these so-called “proceedings” is disturbing: it does not seem to have followed the actual law.

…As I get ready to post this blog we hear about a 12 year old black child being shot to death by Ohio Police….

Police: Culture of Shame. Yes. A broad brush. I point out that the numbers of  police officers who have come out in passionate, zealous support of Wilson, from day one, are legion…all across the country. And NOW they all believe Wilson has in fact been vindicated when in fact he has not.

GOP Steals the Golden Pot : Leprechauns Leap Into the Sea

© 2014 Turtle Heart at Chaco Canyon

Political Commentary from Sacred Pipe

Warning: contents contains fuck, aggravation and angst.

©2014 Turtle Heart

The Democratic Leadership failed the Democratic Voters in this cycle. Failed us bad.

....and Voters Just sat on their Ass and Did Nothing

While the GOP national policy debacle was refined and focused, it was also mirrored by all levels of the leadership…and followed down to the game on the street with voters. The democratic leadership had almost nothing to say. I saw no inspiring speeches by DW Schultz, Harry Reid, really nobody. The Clintons dissed all sitting democrats and pushed their own agenda.

Why was not every dollar and every voice united behind Lundergren-Grimes? Why? If the generals in the field and the money in the pockets of the money people, if all the democratic soldiers had lined up, McConnell would have been defeated, and this would have been a singular, significant and attainable possibility. Just think of it. The GOP sweeps to victory by McConnell is thrown out. How sweet would that have been? Those who really believe, or say they believe, in the Democratic Party have failed we the voters.

The Honorable Harry Reid must be replaced. Washerman-Schultz must be replaced. Whoever our leadership is around us needs to be confronted with the obvious failures of leadership. Very very few of the established Democratic base put their time, money and effort into this election.

The obstructionist, extremist, bat shit crazy policies of the GOP are despised by all reasonable people…and they continue to win victory after victory. And not surprising victories. Predictable victories. And our leadership remains powerless. Where are the real fighters, the bare-knuckle politicians who know how to bring it on?

The Great Big Fucking Lie

“The American People elected Repoublicans to run the country and stop the illegal behavior of Obama”…said in various ways, this posturing lie. The truth reveals that the actual American People do not support the GOP. They do not. The Republicans “won” by the money dumped into the laps of their suspiciously entrenched, manufactured base…they won because the lazy, frustrated and indifferent voters in the United States did not vote. They stayed home. The republicans, the old white ones in particular (pay attention) gave the GOP this situation. Minorities, women, young people all stayed away. From disgust. The dems were unable, in most cases, to inspire their base at all. This is Primal Political Sin in my view.

This is not “approval”…this is not “permission”…it is not a mandate about anything at all. It was a track that cost billions of dollars and a portfolio of lies unequaled in modern times.  It is Political Flim Flam. Drivel being posed as Revelation.

They are crowing, preening and perhaps some of them even believe this giant fucking lie. Almost certainly the MSM will tell us this lie hourly. Pardon “my French”, but Fucking Lie is the clearest way to express this fact. Republicans wil turn this lie into Gold, a new Mythology to be written on future statues of Alzheimer’s patient Ronald Reagan. This is real evidence of cultural dementia, this new force animating the Republicans.

These facts put the democrats to sleep. No one has come up with a catchy comeback to this fiction. None of the democrats seemed able to understand the opportunity they had.

I wonder if odds makers are calculating bets on how many times Boehner and O’Connell will repeat this lie to explain their contempt, obstruction, cowardice and elite classism to those same “American people”?

It literally brought tears to my eyes to see Alison Lundergren-Grimes fail to unseat the disgusting white male known as Mitch McConnell. If the democratic leadership and their money were even paying attention at all, had helped her, she would have won. There is no question about this. Her defeat rests squarely on the shoulders of democratic leadership.

The democrats re-elected their senate and house leadership. Fail. They should all be replaced. Voter turn out was the lowest in over 70 years.

So shame on you if you did not vote. You gave even more power to this fucking lie. Congratulations.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhgh !

Professional Sports : Disposable Women : Contempt For Women Part Two

©2014 Turtle Heart : Waiting With the Wind. 1998

I do not for a minute understand why people watch professional sports. What are you actually watching? You are not watching athletes. You are watching professionals and their corporations. A business. That is only connected with winning and to making money. No other issues are on the table and no other issues are desired. Where is the sport?

If you are a woman who is a wife or companion to a so-called professional athlete, your job is emphatically to shut up, don’t make waves, don’t complain, don’t embarrass “your millionaire man”. Be quiet.

Even women who are in millionaire sports families have about the same moral and legal rights as poor American Indian women. American Indian women are the highest at risk group for domestic violence, rape, being sold into sexual slavery, and murder by a family member…by a factor of 3 to 1. There may in fact not exist an indigenous tribal woman who has not been abused in some way. No we understand that even the privileged small percentage of women who marry and date professional sports corporate employees have the same rights in cases of violence…which is to say, almost none.

I have never watched any pro sports event.Ever. I am not interested in the entertainments brought forward by multi-billion dollar corporations. Ever. I see nothing interesting in it at all. The large crowds that are fascinated by this situation are incomprehensible to me.

As an operative in American Indian spiritual and ceremonial issues, I spend a lot of my time with women who have been victims of the men in their lives. The damaged men. The lost men. The tough guys. I have seen with my own experience how almost every tribal community of American Indians are held together by the women and the elders. Not the men. Rarely. I have observed with my own experience the courage and integrity of so many fine women. I could count on my fingers the number of men I have ever worked with about whom I could say the same. Ever. All of the liars, cowards, fools, thieves and monsters I have met in my life have been men.

From the CDC: 24 people per minute are victims of rape, violence or stalking : A rape happens every 6 minutes in the USA : the national average is 1 in 5 women : among American Indian women it is 7 out of 10….over 1 billion women each year treated like this around the word….at some point, in an honest society, these facts must penetrate. Yet, in a tightly-controlled corporation, if such an item existed with honor, could in fact have a zero tolerance policy and change those statistics to zero. Ina single day.Right now. They never have.

And if a rich man beats, murders or abandons his “woman”, such as the rich so-called athletes in the NFL, that woman has less chance of justice than a penniless American Indian woman on a remote reservation…that is to say nearly Zero. The paymaster will sweep it under the rug. The high-priced attorneys will make everything the woman’s fault. In some places, the complaining woman, the victim can be killed for “allowing” herself to be a victim. Yes, this is the circumstance of corporation sports. Of billionaire sports. Of the NFL.

Anyone who “blames the victim” is a coward, an empty bag of mostly water. They should always be shouted down. It is a world wide problem about which not enough is being done.

Even by people, we can see now, by example, who could in fact use its power, its wealth, its influence with young people, to help society, to protect women, to increase our respect and tolerance for each other. Even if it is not their job, it is in fact something they could do, and do easily…all the pro sports corporations could do more to protect women, to increase the peace, to encourage us to be tolerant and to tell the truth. It is something they can do. The old American Indians used to sing me an old song, the words to the song are along these lines: “there is always something you can do”…so why not go ahead. This is true for the NBA, FIFA, GM, IBM, NBA and YOU and ME.

What the hell is all this covering up, denying, sweeping under the carpet, passing the buck….what the hell is that all about really? How do we get corporate citizens to actually be good citizens? The US Supreme Court agreed with Mr Romney, “corporations are people my friend”…how do we get their hands out of our pockets and actually onto the streets of our community doing the work of a good citizen, a responsible citizen. They seem to want it both ways, a sure sign of a liar and a thief…..they want corporate deniability but they want personhood rights, which means being accountable. To be a human being means being accountable. 

Where is that accountability to basic human rights and respect for women in any corporation, anywhere?

It is painful to see, to know, to understand that Sacred Women, those fine mothers, sisters, wives and companions would ever suffer the vulgar, pitiful cruelty of the fist of a man, the force of a man. Heartbreaking. It enrages my very soul, inflames my heart, and bends the light around inside my mind. What is lost if we respect women, exclude them from male violence? What kind of man would allow the men around him to abuse women? What supervisor or CEO would want men working under them who abuse women? The CEO of the NFL is one of those men. CEO of a corporation. How many of them are just like this? GM ring a bell? Or “Binders Full of Women” recall a CEO who not only has no interest in respecting women, he has a woman in his life he says it’s OK with her. Yes, some women also believe it is OK. And many of the other voices that could do something: do nothing. When this behaviour is OK with women, as it clearly was with a surprising number of women in the Ray Rice NFL Ravens situation, this is the perfect expression of submission, oppression and subjugation that emphasises and confirms the destructive, insidious power of rage and violence.

Right Now, there is enough money, space, resources for every person on this mother earth to have what they need. Yet corporations and their paymasters have more than they can count, and those who work and say yes to ordinary jobs never have enough. And people are hungry. Homeless. Without work or food. And women are sold as sex slaves. Women are punched unconscious in elevators in Las Vegas and dragged across the carpet like a sack of trash. And that guy kept his job, was protected by the paymaster and had his wife, whom he had knocked unconscious, come on national tv and actually apologise. Instead of supporting this woman, a victim of a severe assault, they chose to place the the weight of all that money, all that bad publicity, all that indifference on her shoulders alone. No a single word of support for her from anyone in the NFL to this day. And the game played on. NFL. America’s most popular entertainment.

Not going to watch. Not going to buy products of their sponsors.

Man Named Stone of Winter

Taos New Mexico

Contempt For Women : Part One : The Islamic State

: The Gray World Part 4

©2014. Turtle Heart

Please stop using the term “Isis” to refer to the failed human beings, the so-called soldiers of the "Islamic State".

Isis refers to a sacred woman. A historical deity who was one of the first cultural symbols of the sacred power of women in human history. It is so embarrassing how poorly informed about language our national media and leadership really is.

The islamic state chose this name after careful calculation. It is not an accident. It is perfectly representative of their contempt, their determined oppression of Muslim Women. And western talking heads in the media babble it back to us. Clueless.

Pay attention. Do not use “Isis”. Stop. Call them islamic state.

My biggest problem with Islam, at every level, is the absolute absence of respect for Women, the relentless oppression of Women, the dominance of a fetish male culture lead by homophobic radicals who apparently had no mothers; are not loved by anyone and whose only authority is argument by murder. The radical Muslims have, in my view, completely hijacked the religion of Islam. The so-called moderate voices of Islam are in fact the people running away, hiding, fleeing by the millions, and they have no voice at all. I know it is more complicated, but this is a perception…that there are really no significant voices of moderation in Islam. In particular at the religious side. The only well known so-called Islamic clerics are hardly moderate, and not at all like clerics.

I do not want to be confused with radicals. I am a religious cleric in my own way, from the American Indian side. I would like to see compassion, peace, respect for human rights and negotiation over murder any day. American Indians have their own problems with American Indian women. They are much more likely to be raped, beaten, murdered or sold into slavery than any other group of women in the United States.  At the same moment, in the same places, American Indian women are the ones most likely to have a job, raise the children or live a life of sobriety (than the American Indian men).

So the problem is hardly unique to the Islamic State and their fellow Muslims. Worldwide, over a billion women are abused in some disgraceful manner every year. One Billion.

What does all of this tell us about the leadership of men? I dare not state the obvious. I might be accused of taking sides.

The failed human beings of the islamic state who have crawled out from under the broken stones of the Arabic desert are lost inside an empty male culture, guided by the wisdom of dirty old men.

The people who are there, in that desert, they are the ones who need to stand up and claim themselves. The fat old king of Saudi Arabia could pay everyone to stop being radicals. From his pocket change. Like the invisible moderates, the Arabic Royalty has nothing to say in the light of day. They talk only in shadows and back rooms; they never use their own mouths to speak. This is the emptiness of only having money and nothing else. Money all by itself can buy a lot of things, a lot of people. It cannot lift a dead religion from the sewers its radical clerics have carried it. It cannot lift a single veil from a single woman. Money cannot put down the gun. These things can only be set free by human beings whose hearts are open, whose hands are empty, and whose women are free. There is no one like that in the population of the failed human beings of the islamic state. I wonder if it is, in fact, infectious. The Zombie Apocalypse is not going to arise from Zombies, it is going to arise from Islam. From men.

Mike Mike : Murder By Police, Part 3

Mike-Mike

In the previous blog I tried to point out the strange relationship between the popular fictions being presented these days with the less than celebrated reality down on the streets and in the halls of the golden tower….so many people it would seem prefer the sweet emptiness of not being well informed at all about what is going on. They read nothing. They watch nothing. They see what is behind them more often than what is in front of them…..people turn off their senses. Poor people do it from the stress and longing for a better future. The rich do it so they will not hear the voice of the poor or the envy of their neighbors. Because they are afraid.

©2014. Turtle Heart Chaco Canyon

At any given moment in time, only a few percentage of the people is paying attention.

Honestly. As an American, I am ashamed. When I travel I tell people, “No. I am not an American. I am an American Indian”. I am ashamed of my country, deeply and without a shred of satisfaction. The political right has become so inhuman, it has become almost impossible to stay calm when American GOP voices speak. And it seems for every vile act of obstruction or hateful comment made by the GOP, there are a dozen silent voices on the other side. Sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode when I even see John McCain or Mitch McConnell, or see the droopy-eyed dog’s as face of Paul Ryan.

The howling dogs at FOX news, truly some of the dullest, most insipid human beings ever to appear in public service in history, define the information agenda every day. Every day the FOX spewing heads talk and all the other media outlets tell us in painful detail what they said, instead of telling their own stories. The outrage, so they say in their headlines, of the progressive media to what FOX has said today fuels them to amplify and repeat over and over the very arguments that outrage them. You never have to watch FOX news yourself, just listen to what all the other media outlets do to spread their words under the guise of “outrage”. It is a very strange problem.

Yet, in studying the faces and expressions of people in the news all around the world, it is surprising how few people know who their political leaders are, what their police are doing, or what is happening in the world. It is not just Americans who refuse to know their world. Why is it so hard?

On Al Jazeera English, just now when I was writing this, a news segment came on showing how the middle class white people were reacting to the murder of Mike-Mike by a white police officer. To those white people it was a big yawn. Most of the anglos the reporter talked to showed only the most basic, and generally incorrect, awareness of what was happening just a few miles away. They looked like nice people. People completely unaware of what is going on around them. Life in a Bubble. This is the new reality. Yes, I watch Al Jazeera English a little every week in my time I spend watching the news of the world. It can be very interesting to see your country’s actions being described by an unsympathetic foreign country. Having watched in detail the events of the aftermath of the murder of Mike-Mike, which was heart-breaking and wrenching, and then see the camera shift over to the white indifference just a few neighborhoods away created a deeply unsettling sensation in my spirit. Unsettling and shame.

And now we know officer “wilson”, a suspected murderer, who gunned down Mike-Mike, has “supporters” who have donated nearly $300,000 to help him out. A dollar number that is growing every day. To be sure, people who want to help the family of Mike-Mike are donating money as well, but not nearly so much (so far). And this fact brings up a new contest between which camp will raise the most money I guess.

Murdered American Indians

There are hundreds of murdered American Indians. Tens of thousands of raped American Indian women. The criminals who killed, abused, raped and robbed are rarely found, rarely brought into the courts. The police rarely investigate the killing of an American Indian. There are over 600 unsolved murders in South Dakota alone. The Indians are invisible.

There are a large number of American Indians in the Ferguson area. Invisible people. Ten times more likely to be killed. 100 times more likely to be abused. 1000 times more likely to be arrested. 10,000 times more likely to get long sentences. 100,000 times more likely to be forgotten and ignored. By the justice system. By the government. By the police. By their own leadership. By you.

Yet I feel really affected by the murder of Mike-Mike. Even though I am an American Indian. Even though I live on a little island in the Mediterranean. I am a human being who cares about his country. A human being who wants to be proud of his country. A human being who can see the rage and inhumanity of a stupid, poorly trained, uneducated white police officer murdering a young black child, from a troubled and oppressed neighborhood and the protection of that corrupt police officer by a clueless, detached, inept local government. A babbling, timid, spineless and bubblehead governor. A democrat of all things. Missouri. North America. 

Heart of Shame.

Pantelleria Island