Their homes burned, their lands stolen, and forests razed. Oil wells and gas flares and open-pit mines and mega-dams alongside their homes against their will. And when they rise up to shout, “No more!” they are met with tear gas and violent repression.

Indigenous blood is being spilled right now on Indigenous Peoples Day. Our work together to stop these attacks and defend Mother Earth has never been more vital.

This summer in Brazil, right-wing president Bolsonaro escalated his attack on the Amazon that has led to millions of acres of burned forests and charred earth. Our climate’s future, and the homes of so many indigenous people, is going up in flames.

Right now in Ecuador, indigenous people are being brutally attacked by security forces. Hundreds have been wounded and arrested and at least five have been killed. Yet they vow to continue standing up against cruel IMF-imposed austerity measures and any further oil drilling or mining on their lands.

Our work to advance indigenous rights and to partner with groups most at risk for defending nature is urgent and effective. We have to keep it going and growing, and that’s why today we invite you to commit to it long-term. Become a monthly donor to Amazon Watch and know that your ongoing support will enable our alliances to defend the Amazon and advance indigenous rights.

Every single day we see indigenous people taking action in ways that will benefit us all. They put their lives on the line to defend Mother Earth and our global climate. On this day, we ask everyone to dig just a little bit deeper and make a year-round commitment in support of this movement and these people. We hope you choose to make this work a part of who you are, not just on Indigenous People’s Day, but every day.
Thank you!

Leila Salazar-López
Executive Director

Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

resource: unwomen.org

Hurricane Dorian has caused massive damage in the Bahamas.”But when Bahamian people attempted to enter the U.S. to seek refuge, Border Patrol sent them back. This is particularly egregious; Bahamian people are looking to come to the U.S. so they can be safe and access the supplies they need to live. But Donald Trump won’t allow it. He claims that the Bahamas are full of ‘very bad gang members,’ and other coded racist language to justify restricting Bahamian people’s access. It is unjust that our country’s leaders have instructed Border Patrol to turn Bahamian people away.

While the Trump Administration and Border Patrol continue to prohibit people who are seeking refuge from entering the U.S., The Boy Scouts of America continue to encourage their scouts to participate in the Law Enforcement Explorer Program, a training partnership that grooms scouts to become Border Patrol agents. At a time when Border Patrol is being used to carry out Trump’s racist, xenophobic agenda, is used to separate families at the border, and is used to prevent Bahamian people from seeking out safety in the U.S., it is unacceptable that the Boy Scouts provide their scouts for this program.

Write to the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America and tell them to end their partnership with Border Patrol.

Until justice is real,
—Brandi, Rashad, Arisha, Evan, Johnny, Future, Samantha, Eesha, Marcus, FolaSade, and the rest of the Color Of Change team

References:
1. “Trump says Bahamas full of ‘very bad gang members’ as he doubles down on not letting Hurricane Dorian refugees in to U.S.,” The Independent, September 9, 2019, https://act.colorofchange.org/go/186144?t=8&akid=36746%2E1174326%2E-tjwvG
2. “Border Patrol Law Enforcement Explorer Program,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, July 22, 2019, https://act.colorofchange.org/go/174140?t=10&akid=36746%2E1174326%2E-tjwvG
3. “Border Patrol Youth Program Trains Children as Young as 14 to Become Agents,” KUT News, November 20, 2017, https://act.colorofchange.org/go/174142?t=12&akid=36746%2E1174326%2E-tjwvG

The White House letter to Congress was a desperate farce
Last night, Trump’s White House sent a letter to Congress refusing to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.  

We fact-checked a few of the most flagrant lies in Trump’s letter to Congress:
• Impeachable offenses: Trump is still adamantly—and absurdly—claiming that he did nothing wrong, when we know from the White House’s Ukraine call memo that he extorted a foreign power to interfere in the 2020 election.
• Massive cover-up: Trump falsely claimed that he’s been transparent. That couldn’t be further from the truth. He, his White House, the State Department, and the Department of Justice have engaged in an extensive cover-up of his extortion campaign.
• Threats: The White House claimed, with zero evidence, that government officials are being bullied. In reality, Trump threatened the first whistleblower: “You know what we used to do in the old days…[We] used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
• Lies and distraction: Trump lied, bogusly claiming that the impeachment inquiry is a “naked political strategy” to overturn the 2016 election. Here’s the reality: The investigation is about Trump extorting a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 election.
• The Constitution: Trump falsely claimed that the impeachment inquiry “lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation.” Stopping foreign interference in U.S. affairs is one of the key reasons why the founders included the impeachment clause in the Constitution in the first place.

source: americanprogressaction.org

By: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
See Article History

Roger Williams, (born 1603?, London, England—died January 27/March 15, 1683, Providence, Rhode Island [U.S.]), English colonist in New England, founder of the colony of Rhode Island and pioneer of religious liberty.

The son of a merchant tailor, he was a protégé of the jurist Sir Edward Coke and was educated at Cambridge. In 1630 he left his post as chaplain to Sir William Masham, which had brought him into contact with such politically active Puritans as Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Hooker, to pursue his by-then completely Nonconformist religious ideals in New England.

Arriving in Boston in 1631, Williams refused to associate himself with the Anglican Puritans and in the following year moved to the separatist Plymouth Colony. In 1633 he was back in Salem after a disagreement with Plymouth in which he insisted that the king’s patent was invalid and that only direct purchase from the Indians gave a just title to the land.

The unpopularity of Williams’s views forced him to flee Massachusetts Bay for Providence in 1636. In 1639 William Coddington, another dissenter in Massachusetts settled his congregation in Newport. Four years later Samuel Gorton, yet another minister banished from Massachusetts Bay because of his differences with the ruling oligarchy, settled in Shawomet (later renamed Warwick). In 1644 these three communities joined with a fourth in Portsmouth under one charter to become one colony called Providence Plantation in Narragansett Bay.

Roger Williams, the man closely associated with the founding of Rhode Island, was banished from Massachusetts because of his unwillingness to conform to the orthodoxy established in that colony. Williams’s views conflicted with those of the ruling hierarchy of Massachusetts in several important ways. His own strict criteria for determining who was regenerate, and therefore eligible for church membership, finally led him to deny any practical way to admit anyone into the church. Once he recognized that no church could ensure the purity of its congregation, he ceased using purity as a criterion and instead opened church membership to nearly everyone in the community. Moreover, Williams showed distinctly Separatist leanings, preaching that the Puritan church could not possibly achieve purity as long as it remained within the Church of England. Finally, and perhaps most serious, he openly disputed the right of the Massachusetts leaders to occupy land without first purchasing it from the Native Americans.

for the complete article and more info …

https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States/The-New-England-colonies#ref612327