Rep. Jasmine Crockett: ‘We are all actually under attack’

Texas was the first state to successfully impose a near-total ban on abortion months before the Dobbs decision was handed down. When Rep. Jasmine Crockett was a state representative she was directly involved in fighting Texas’ draconian abortion laws. “This isn’t about whether or not you agree with abortion,” says Crockett. “Until you understand that all of these freedoms are inextricably linked, then you will never understand that we are all actually under attack.”

Source: Rep. Jasmine Crockett: ‘We are all actually under attack’

Project 2025 seeks to resurrect a 151-yr-old law to subordinate women

The Dobbs decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion marked the first step in a broader campaign by Christian conservatives to eliminate reproductive freedom for women in America. Their ultimate goal is a nationwide abortion ban, and the extremist blueprint, Project 2025, seeks to accomplish just that. The plan centers on resurrecting an outdated obscenity law, the 1873 Comstock Act, to target medication abortion, which is the most commonly used method of abortion today. “They want to revive this law from 1873 that was passed when women couldn’t even participate in the electoral process, and certainly weren’t represented in Congress,” says Leah Litman, professor at the University of Michigan Law School, adding that their goal is to “subordinate women’s bodily autonomy to their preferred vision of gender roles.”

Source: Project 2025 seeks to resurrect a 151-yr-old law to subordinate women

LAND BACK NOW! « Land for the Indigenous people has no commercial value, as in the private sense of civil possession. It is a relationship of identity, which includes spirituality and existence, and it is possible to affirm that there is no Indigenous community without land! »  | Barbara Crane Navarro

Indigenous people brandishing the Brazilian Constitution in 2021

« ‘They ripped off our leaves

broke our branches

cut our trunks

But they forgot to pull out our roots’

And today we are here fighting for life. They still don’t understand it.

But it is true that Indigenous peoples are in danger of disappearing!

Please remain attentive and mobilized! NO to the Time Frame Trick! »

NOW: INTERNATIONAL COMPLAINT ABOUT THE « TIME FRAME » 

On Thursday, September 12, 2024, APIB was on the agenda of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a healthy environment along with 21 embassies.

Apib reported on the different violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples due to Law 14,701/2023, on the Conciliation Chamber of the Temporal Framework proposed by Minister Gilmar Mendes, and also on the threat of PEC 48 which intends to include the Temporal Framework in the Federal Constitution.

The Executive Coordinator of APIB by COIAB, Kleber Karipuna, and the Legal Coordinator of APIB, Maurício Terena, drew attention to procedural violations in access to justice and colonial stereotypes presented in the Conciliation Chamber, resulting in APIB’s withdrawal from this process, and the impacts of the Time Frame thesis both in the increase in violence against Indigenous people and in efforts to combat the climate crisis.

The general representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Jan Jarab, participated virtually in the meeting and reiterated the United Nations’ position contrary to the Temporal Framework, and informed that he will again express his concerns about the violations against Brazil.

BEFORE:

Indigenous people follow the court proceedings on a screen in front of the Federal Supreme Court in 2021

In a landmark court case that was first presented in 2017, only two justices have voted. The case has been postponed repeatedly over the years…

Brazil’s Supreme Court Minister Edson Fachin cast his vote to reject the time frame thesis and in favor of Indigenous peoples’ rights.

Fachin stated: « There is no greater legal certainty than complying with the Constitution, » rebutting the ruralist argument that demarcations without a « time frame » generate legal uncertainty.

In his vote, Fachin defends that Indigenous constitutional rights cannot be set back, « since these rights are linked to the very condition of existence of these communities and their way of life. »

He rejects interpretations that try to equate Indigenous ownership and civil ownership, as the time frame thesis does. « Indigenous lands », he says, « are broader than ‘a set of huts’; they comprise all the territory necessary for the existence of the peoples. »

Thousands of native women from 150 indigenous nations march in Brasilia to defend their rights in 2021

He added that « Land for the Indigenous people has no commercial value, as in the private sense of civil possession. It is a relationship of identity, which includes spirituality and existence, and it is possible to affirm that there is no Indigenous community without land »

Fachin reinforces the sense of « exclusive usufruct », which the Bolsonaro government is trying so hard to subvert: it means the impossibility of granting, in any way, the riches of the soils, rivers and lakes to third parties outside the Indigenous community.

Minister Fachin: « The constitutional protection of the original rights over the lands they traditionally occupy is independent of the existence of a time frame on October 5, 1988. »

The future of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil is at stake

Minister Fachin proposed correcting the thesis:

« The Indigenous territorial rights are a fundamental right of the Indigenous communities and they materialize in the original right on the lands they traditionally occupy, under the following assumptions:

I – demarcation consists of a declaratory procedure of the original territorial right to possession of lands traditionally occupied by the Indigenous community;

II – traditional Indigenous ownership is distinct from civil ownership, consisting in the occupation of lands inhabited on a permanent basis by the Indigenous peoples, those used for their productive activities, those essential to the preservation of environmental resources necessary for their well-being…

III – the constitutional protection of the original rights over the lands they traditionally occupy does not depend on the existence of a time frame on October 5, 1988, as there is no basis for the establishment of any time frame;

IV – the constitutional protection of the original rights over the lands they traditionally occupy is independent of the configuration of the persistent dispossession as a physical conflict or persistent judicial controversy at the time of the promulgation of the Constitution;

V – the anthropological report carried out under the terms of Decree No. 1776/1996 is a fundamental element for demonstrating the traditionality of the occupation of a determined Indigenous community, according to its uses, customs and traditions;

VI – the resizing of Indigenous land is not prohibited in case of non-compliance with the elements contained in article 231 of the Constitution of the Republic, by means of a demarcation procedure under the terms of the governing rules;

VII – the lands of traditional Indigenous occupation are permanently owned by the community, with the Indigenous peoples having the exclusive use of the riches of the soil, rivers and lakes existing in them;

VIII – lands of traditional Indigenous occupation, as public lands, are inalienable, unavailable and the rights over them are imprescriptible;

IX – are null and void, with no legal effects, the acts that have as their object the possession, domain or occupation of lands of traditional Indigenous occupation, or the exploitation of the riches of the soil, rivers and lakes existing in them…

X – there is compatibility between the traditional occupation of Indigenous lands and the constitutional protection of the environment. »

Ivo Aureliano Makuxi

Indigenous lawyers Samara Pataxó, Luiz Eloy Terena and Ivo Aureliano Makuxi summarized the vote:

« Nunes Marques vote, divergent from Fachin’s vote, reproduced the arguments already used and reinforced by those who cowardly cling to the ‘time frame’ to continue their robbery of Indigenous lands and lives!

Repeating arguments from the most backward sectors of agribusiness, like a copy and paste of the ruralists’ petitions, Minister Nunes Marques presented his vote in favor of the thesis of the ‘time frame’ for the demarcation of indigenous lands, saying that without it, ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘social pacification’ would be at risk.

Nunes Marques recognizes that Indigenous law is imprescriptible, but applies the ‘time frame’, giving amnesty for crimes perpetrated against Indigenous peoples – A monstrous vote!

We have been resisting for over 500 years. »

For more details, please read:

One of the best ways to help preserve the Amazon Rainforest is to directly help the Indigenous peoples who are protecting it!

Please join me in supporting the Apib, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil.
They do far more than just petition governments who are benefitting financially from the ongoing destruction. Apib is assisting Indigenous communities address ongoing health issues and, with Indigenous lawyers, they are taking the Brazilian government to court!

Here’s information about the Apib in English, Portuguese and Spanish:

https://apiboficial.org/apib/?lang=en

And here:

https://apiboficial.org/sobre/?lang=en

Please donate here if you’d like to:

https://apiboficial.org/apoie/?lang=en

 

Source: LAND BACK NOW! « Land for the Indigenous people has no commercial value, as in the private sense of civil possession. It is a relationship of identity, which includes spirituality and existence, and it is possible to affirm that there is no Indigenous community without land! »  | Barbara Crane Navarro

Did you know that gold kills Indigenous people and rare animals? Gold mining kills Indigenous peoples throughout the world like the Yanomami people of Brazil and Venezuela! – Palm Oil Detectives | Barbara Crane Navarro

Source: Did you know that gold kills Indigenous people and rare animals? Gold mining kills Indigenous peoples throughout the world like the Yanomami people of Brazil and Venezuela! – Palm Oil Detectives | Barbara Crane Navarro

Liebe ist Leben / … Love is life – Stella, oh, Stella

Tolstoy on 23 May 1908 at Yasnaya Polyana, Lithograph print by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky

Wenn man mit menschlicher Liebe liebt, kann sie sich in Hass verwandeln, aber göttliche Liebe kann sich nicht verändern. Nichts, nicht einmal der Tod, kann sie zerstören. Sie ist die reine Natur der Seele. Liebe ist Leben. Alles, ja alles, was ich verstehe, verstehe ich nur auf Grund von Liebe. Alles ist in Liebe eingebunden. Liebe ist Gott, und zu sterben bedeutet für mich, ein Stückchen Liebe, zu der universellen und ewigen Quelle der Liebe zurückzukehren.
Leo Tolstoi

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Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is all the very nature of the soul. Love is life. All, all that I understand, I understand only because of love. All is bound up in love alone. Love is God and dying means for me, a particle of love, to go back to the universal and eternal source of love.
Leo Tolstoy

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Liebe ist Leben!

… Love is life!

Source: Liebe ist Leben / … Love is life – Stella, oh, Stella

Unlocking the Secrets of the Amazon Rainforest: Hidden Civilizations and Biodiversity

The Hidden History Beneath the Canopy

For centuries, mainstream academia maintained that the Amazon was largely untouched by human hands, a pristine wilderness sparsely inhabited by small, hunter-gatherer tribes. The poor soil quality, often referred to as “counterfeit paradise,” reinforced this belief. Supporting the densest and most biodiverse forest on Earth, it seemed counterintuitive that the soil could not sustain large-scale agriculture.

But recent discoveries have shattered this view. Advances in LIDAR technology, which can penetrate the dense forest canopy, have revealed vast, previously unknown pre-Columbian civilizations that thrived in the Amazon. These civilizations, which built monumental architecture and sustained large populations, have remained hidden for centuries, overgrown by the forest. The discovery of vast man-made geoglyphs, roads, and even pyramids has turned our understanding of Amazonian history on its head.

In the Yanos de Moxos region of Bolivia, for example, LIDAR uncovered cities with conical pyramids and complex water management systems. Similar finds in the Apono Valley of Ecuador have revealed dense urban centers with thousands of homes, plazas, and intricate road networks. These discoveries suggest that the Amazon was once home to millions of people, living in thriving, advanced societies…

Source: Unlocking the Secrets of the Amazon Rainforest: Hidden Civilizations and Biodiversity

Moms for Liberty chapter VP arrested on Jan. 6 charges: court records – Raw Story

…According to court documents, Justina Guardino was arrested in Wilmington, North Carolina, on charges including entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct, and unlawful picketing in a Capitol building. A PACER entry confirmed the arrest warrant, which was under seal until recently.

The New Hanover County chapter of Moms for Liberty appeared to have scrubbed any mention of Guardino from their website. However, an archived version of their site from April via the Wayback Machine showed the organization previously listed her as vice chair.

Source: Moms for Liberty chapter VP arrested on Jan. 6 charges: court records – Raw Story