We’re going up to Montreal Canada for the last weekend of our honeymoon and stumbled across a music festival going on at the same time.  We’re only going Saturday, primarily to see Coldplay.

Here’s a few of the artists playing Saturday.

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Health care in America is a failing proposition. An estimated 47 million Americans do not have health insurance. And yet Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calls the health care of Native Americans a “historic failure.” What about health care in the rest of America?

The new head of the Indian Health Service, Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, was not as harsh. She said, “It’s clear that there’s a call for change and improvement in the Indian Health Care Service, and it’s also clear the IHS has been significantly under-funded for many years. The staff of Indian Health Service has been doing the best it can with limited resources, and in some cases they are providing excellent quality of care with limited resources.”

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the man in the Senate leading the way, said that Congress will pass comprehensive and meaningful health care legislation this year. He compared the legislation as the most sweeping since the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “It’s gonna pass. It’s gonna happen. There’s no doubt about it,” he said.

The efforts to introduce universal health care can be traced to the days of Woodrow Wilson and more recently to the political fiasco during the Bill Clinton administration in 1993 and 1994. The most powerful opposition to universal health care can be found in the medical profession and the insurance companies. They present a formidable lobby on Capitol Hill.

Those Americans opposed to it compare it to Canada’s or Britain’s health care systems, which they say are nothing but socialized medicine. The Indian Health Care system, deemed a “historic failure” by Sebelius, has also been labeled as socialized medicine, and the fact that she would label it as a failure does not place much faith in an even larger universal health care system. It just seems that every time the federal government takes total control over anything, failure is almost assured. Watch out General Motors.

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http://www.examiner.com/x-12553-SF-Ethnic-Communities-Examiner~y2009m6d7-American-Indian-Film-Institute-call-for-entries

via Examiner:

The American Indian Film Institute (AIFI) is seeking film and video entries for the 34th annual American Indian Film Festival — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious venue for American Indian film arts and entertainment.

The 2009 American Indian Film Festival will be presented November 6-14 in San Francisco. Films to be entered for competition should be by or about American Indian or Canada First Nations people and produced during year 2008-2009. Entry deadline is August 7, 2009.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/12/mining-oil-resources-land-flashpoints

Arizona

The Navajo nation is fighting uranium mining through the US courts. Radiation levels are 450 times the normal levels. Other uranium mines are opposed by indigenous groups in Australia, India, Canada, Niger and Botswana.

Botswana

The Bushmen of the Kalahari desert have been progressively pushed out of their traditional lands by the state to make way for mining.

Brazil, Paraguay, Peru

Five “uncontacted” tribes living deep in the forests of Peru, Brazil and Paraguay are at risk of extinction as oil companies, colonists and loggers invade their territories, says Survival International.

Canada

The giant oil tar fields in Alberta are some of the most polluting in the world, and will stretch over thousands of square kilometres. They are the centre of a legal battle between oil companies and the Beaver Lake Cree nation and other indigenous groups.

Colombia

Oil companies are moving into the western Amazon and prospecting indigenous land. Tribes are caught in the crossfire of a civil war between the state and guerillas.

Congo

Pygmy groups in the rainforest are threatened by logging and mining companies.

Guatemala

Thousands of indigenous people have been forced to move to make way for giant dams and other developments. Indigenous leaders are regularly faced with threats of assassination by the authorities. Death squads have re-emerged.

Indonesia

Palm oil companies in Sumatra have been expanding into the forests and grabbing land from indigenous communities. This, says Oxfam, is leading to conflict and more poverty.

Kenya

The indigenous Ogiek people who have lived for centuries in the Mau forest are being forced out to make way for logging, paper and tea companies.

Nigeria

The oil producing Niger Delta which accounts for 4% of all the world’s oil, is now heavily militarised as ethnic militia groups resort to kidnapping and violence in response to generations of abject poverty.

Philippines

Tribal lands are being militarised and repression of indigenous groups is ­increasing as giant coal, gold and copper mines destroy traditional water sources and fields.

West Papua

Companies have dug around $100bn of copper and gold from West Papua in 40 years, but while the Indonesian government has richly benefited, local tribes have been dispossessed of land and livelihoods.

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conway k (red power squad) spoken word (via cksmooth11)

Red Power Squad

The Red Power Squad is a performing group from Edmonton Alberta Canada.  Formed in early 1998 by founder Conway Kootenay, the RPS was designed to give innercity youth a way out of all the negativity that they faced on a daily basis.

Almost 10 years later the RPS has exploded into a world wide success.  With top notch Traditional Native Dance combined with Emcee, b boys/b girl skills that are second to none, the RPS will leave you with a high octane performance that is hard to forget.

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Mohawk Warriors vow to storm border post

Canadian Mohawks are protesting the arming of Canadian guards at the border citing a violation of Native sovereignty over their Reserve.

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‘You Are On Indian Land’ is a short 1969 Canadian documentary that focuses on Tribal Sovereignty, which has long been a source of contention between Natives and Federal Governments, by following a short lived protest by Canadian Mohawks.  This 36 minute film ultimately asks, Who really owns Indian land?

The film shows the confrontation between police and a 1969 demonstration by Mohawks of the St. Regis Reserve on the bridge between Canada and the United States near Cornwall, Ontario. By blocking traffic on the bridge, which is on the Reserve, the Indians drew public attention to their grievance that they were prohibited by Canadian authorities from duty-free passage of personal purchases across the border, a right they claim was established by the Jay Treaty of 1794.

via (National Film Board of Canada)

‘You Are On Indian Land’ is credited with being the first Canadian documentary to chronicle Native issues.

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Lakota Spoof (via phoenixpa)

Graham Greene provides a humorous commentary on the type of stereotypes that still abound regarding American Indians

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