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Native Rights, Water, Dogs and Pipeline - Attack on Original Nations and Larger Threat to Earth's Water Supply; Sept. 13 Nationwide Solidarity Actions

Jim Gray; Steven Newcomb Indian Country
In North Dakota the largest gathering of Native people in opposition to the construction of a massive pipeline project is now going on near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The project threatens the only water supply for the impoverished reservation and adversely affects the quality of life for Indian and non-Indian people in the area. Private security with vicious dogs have been used against protesters. Join the Sept. 13 national day of action against the pipeline

The Toxic Legacy of Racism and Nuclear Waste Is Very Much Still With Us in Los Alamos

Taryn Fivek Altermet
Things will continue on in Los Alamos, no matter who is elected U.S. president in November. The political roots run deeper than the surface justifications of security or scientific advancement. And like the rest of the United States, the lasting effects Los Alamos has had on the planet will be felt for millennia to come, if humanity outlasts the product of its labor for at least 24,100 years—the half-life of plutonium-239.

How Real is Voter Fraud?

Sami Edge, News21 and Sean Holstege; Brennan Center Washngton Post, Brennan Center for Justice
As historians and election experts have catalogued, there is a long history in this country of racially suppressive voting measures including poll taxes and all - white primaries put in place under the guise of stopping voter fraud that wasn’t actually occurring in the first place. The surest way toward voting that is truly free, fair, and accessible is to know the facts in the face of such rhetoric.

Trump, in a Major Immigration Speech, Is Back in Fearmongering Form

Julianne Hing; Deirdre Fulton The Nation; Common Dreams
In Mexico, Trump is solemn and praising; in Arizona, he's back to hysterical horror shows. His return to his old self was swift. Trump's Wednesday night speech was fiery, leaning on his usual depictions of immigrants as murderous, villainous, sexually deviant leeches. And then, he not only pledged every harsh anti-immigration tactic he'd floated for the past year, he expanded on them all - aimed at revving up his conservative base.

Slavery and the National Anthem: The Surprising History Behind Colin Kaepernick's Protest

AJ Willingham CNN.com
Jackie Robinson, writing in 1972: I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world. Jim Brown, the Cleveland Browns Hall of Fame running backin 2016 said he stands '100 percent' behind Colin Kaepernick. Further, Kaepernick 'made all the sense in the world' in explaining his position. This is part of a long tradition of athletes, especially African American athletes combining sport and protest. (* ESPN)

books

Naming America's Own Genocide

Richard White The Nation
Between 1846 and 1873, California's Indian population plunged by some 80 percent. The book painstakingly recapitulates the systematic homicidal culling of the state's native American tribes . While not the final word on the ubiquity of the term genocide worldwide, it establishes that murder was the preferred and accepted method of social control for white settlers, gold miners. state militias and federal policy makers. The long-term consequences were staggering.

Milwaukee Officials: Black Youth, Single Mothers Are Not Responsible for Systemic Failings—You Are

Charmaine Lang Rewire
Single mothers should not be blamed for young people's responses to a city that ignores or criminalizes them. Many of Milwaukee’s Black families have never experienced calm. They have not experienced a city that centers their needs and voices. Black youth fed up with their treatment are not creeps. Should they face unemployment, underemployment, police brutality, and racism—and face it without complaint?
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