Endurance

Obama Human Rights Scorecard:

Indigenous Peoples -- F
LGBT Peoples -- F
Unions -- F
War and Peace -- F
Health Care -- F
Education -- F
Govt Corruption -- F

Communal values entail more than localized assimilation of capitalist functions. In fact, the only successful communal political entities -- tribes -- survived due to values diametrically opposed to those of capitalism. From an indigenous point of view, ownership, as understood by industrial states, is socially suicidal.

The past is all around us; it provides context for our present grievances and future resolutions.

Later this month, I'll be visiting Sacajawea State Park, at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers in Washington state, to see the memorial designed by Maya Lin and Native Americans as part of the Confluence Project to commemorate the Lewis and Clark Voyage of Discovery. One of the tribes participating in the project was the Cayuse, who were noted warriors, horsemen, and nomads, traveling annually from Oregon's Blue Mountains over the Rockies to hunt buffalo.