deletetheborder.org

"Tomorrow, tell me, where will you wake up?
Beyond title, beyond these careers and laws,
Something more than borders on a map..."
-against me

my blog

We mourn the dead of Oaxaca as we mourn our own and we take courage from the determination in the struggle that this people has shown in response to the repression. They have united their voices in the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO): some 350 organizations have taken back the city and struggle to overthrow the corrupt government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.
-Jamal Juma', Coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
click read more for full statement.

Below is a story that was sent to me recently. I think it serves as a good reminder of the constant state of patriarchy that the world lives under. My initial response is the usual call for all men, including those in radical communities, to continue to work and challenge their sexist behavior.

I also want to pull out the two paragraphs below and note the "even in such developed countries" part. There is a disturbing strain of racism that regards the other, the people of color out there in the "Third World" (i could write a thousand blog entries about that term) as the barbarians that still rape and oppress women. Women's rights activists, radical organizers and others in support of human rights need to challenge this bigotry.

The most common form of serious abuse against women and girls around the globe is violence by intimate partners. Huge percentages of female murder victims, even in such developed countries as Australia, Canada, Israel and the United States, are killed by current or former husbands or boyfriends.

This article shows the misogyny that exists worldwide so why try and qualify that which happens in the US or Europe or Australia? All men everywhere need to change their behavior and all women everywhere need to stand together against this violence. And, by the way, fuck gender norms! We all must fight together, no matter what gender (and there are indefinite genders), to stop this violence now!

Why today? Why have I chosen to sit and reflect on the last 24 hours; this latest spin on the axis? In some ways, that deserves critique. Incidents of intensity happen a million times over in spaces around the globe. As the death machine of neo-imperialism and hyper-globalization churns on, there are a billion battles a day of all shapes and sizes. They all are important.

Today, those battles feel a little closer than usual. Perhaps the intensity is based on their interconnectness. From Phoenix to Encinitas to San Diego and stretching through the border all the way to Oaxaca. People are dying. They are dying quick deaths by gunshot and slow deaths by aggrevated starvation. They are being murdered by a system hell-bent on continuing its own exploitative existance no matter what. Today, all of this touched my life; here's a bit of what happened...

to any of you out there that read this (if there is anyone), apologies for the lack of bloggin'

the realities of this capitalist system - i.e. rent, work, transportation, bills, etc. - have been getting to me pretty intensely as of late. i know i'll be back and writing soon but until then, if you haven't read this:

http://deletetheborder.org/node/1659

you should; cuz it's rad and the author is a good blogger/writer to check out.

be back soon
oona

The attached is a speech that Joseph Nevins gave in Tucson, AZ in July 2006 titled, "Boundary Enforcement and National Security in an Age of Global Apartheid." It is presented in .pdf format and set up for easy printing. I find this to be a great overview and primer of sorts on the current situation at the Mexico/US border as well as migration around the world.

Boundary Enforcement and National Security in an Age of Global Apartheid

thanks to Klee for sending this out and to him and the folks that he works, plays and struggles with: you are a true inspiration. thank you.

www.savethepeaks.org *** www.indigenousaction.org

Time to reflect on other cultures
Prescott Daily Courier 10/9/06
by Randall Amster

Today is Columbus Day, a fitting time to reflect on our relationship with indigenous cultures. Sadly, in some ways things haven’t improved all that much since 1492.

Consider the lawsuit filed last year by over a dozen tribes (recently heard by an appeals court in San Francisco), asserting that the government’s plan to spray frozen wastewater on SnowBowl would materially impact the tribes’ centuries-old religious practices and lead to increased health risks.

It’s hard not to see this as part of an overall view that suggests native cultures are second-class. Indeed, the concept of Manifest Destiny itself was based on such an understanding. When Europeans came to North America and “discovered” an amazing stretch of land, there was only one small problem: there were already people living here. But since they were seen as “savages” and lacked “legal title” to the land, their removal was morally justified.

I found the below a couple years ago when I was first getting into anti-vigilante work. It's the intro section of something put out by the National Immigration Forum titled, "Cycles of Nativism in U.S. History." Food for though, I guess. Or at least a counterpoint to the bullshit 'once this country was great and only now is it full of inequality and bigotry' liberal crap. It's by no means perfect/ideal but a starting point - at least it was for me.

As a nation of immigrants, the United States has also been a nation of nativists. At times we have offered, in Tom Paine's words, "an asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty" from all parts of the world. At other times Americans have done the persecuting--passing discriminatory laws against the foreign-born, denying their fundamental rights, and assaulting them with mob violence, even lynchings. We have welcomed immigrants in periods of expansion and optimism, reviled them in periods of stagnation and cynicism. Our attitudes have depended primarly on domestic politics and economics, secondarily on the volume and characteristics of the newcomers. In short, American nativism has had less to do with "them" than us.

ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS.Few immigrants arrived in the nation's infancy, but among them were European radicals who caused great alarm among the ruling Federalists. Worried that excessive democracy posed a threat to property and stability, the Adams administration regarded politically active immigrants as subversives, not to mention partisan adversaries--most were aligned with Jefferson's Democratic-Republican clubs. In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, giving the President arbitray powers to exclude or deport foreigners deemed dangerous and to prosecute anyone who criticized the government(used mainly to imprison immigrant editors and pamphleteers). A new Naturalization Act sought to limit immigrants' electoral clout by extending the waiting period for citizenship to 14 years.

The following is an op-ed piece from the San Diego Union-Tribune published about a week after Escondido, a city in North San Diego County, passed an ordinance making it illegal to rent housing to undocumented people. see http://deletetheborder.org/node/1579 for the original repost of the story.

I pulled out a section of the op-ed to start (click read more for the full text). I think that it brings up a really important yet often forgotten piece of the immigration conversation. That point is that throughout the history of the United States, nativist movements and fascist nationalists have violently scapegoated several groups including radicals and immigrants. But, nativism is about nativists not immigrants.

In Waldron's arch-conservative world view, illegal immigrants are the new Cold War Communists, infiltrators threatening the “sovereignty” of the United States.

It's a powerful nexus that stokes fear, resentment and anger toward the enemy overrunning schools, hospitals and job sites. Political gold.

this is intense. i don't know what else to say.

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SAN XAVIER DISTRICT, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION, Ariz. – Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson, who puts out water for migrants dying of dehydration near the international border, said it is time to hold the Tohono O'odham Nation accountable.

"If we are a sovereign nation, why does the Border Patrol run rampant on tribal lands?" said Wilson, who has ignored pressure form the tribal government to halt his effort and water stations.

"As far as I am concerned the United States Border Patrol is an occupying army. If we were truly a sovereign nation, we would not have an occupying army on sovereign land."

Wilson pointed out that the occupying army has a military camp two miles north of the international border on O'odham tribal land in Arizona.