The South Dakota abortion ban inspired Cecelia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux Nation, to call for a clinic to be built on the reservation. It is, she says, the start of a quiet revolution. She now faces impeachment.

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"I got really angry about a bunch of white guys making decisions about my body,"  Fire Thunder said.

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Abortion, Fire Thunder said, is part of the aboriginal right of tribal women throughout North America.

Until the advent of missionaries and their boarding schools a century ago, the knowledge of terminating pregnancies, both
physically and spiritually, was passed down through women's societies.

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http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2793

Flip Benham and Operation Rescue (or Operation Save America at http://www.operationsaveamerica.org) are planning a protest in Jackson, Mississippi at Jackson Women's Health Organization (http://www.gynpages.com/jwho) for the week of July 15-22.

The frightening words from their website:
"The Gentle Revolution is making its way toward Jackson, Mississippi, this year, July 15-22, 2006. Pro-life leaders from across our nation will be joining us at the "last abortion mill " in the state of Mississippi. We will be storming the gates of hell in the strong Name of Jesus Christ. Little did any of us know, as we ran to the roar to help those devastated by Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana, that God was preparing us to return to Mississippi to deal with an even more deadly foe - Abortion!"

They recently picketed the Raleigh Women's Health Organization (http://www.gynpages.com/rwho) and Susan Hill's home in Raleigh NC.  This is also the same group that attacked Dr. Warren Hern in Boulder last Summer.

On behalf of Susan Hill and the rest of the staff, we appreciate the concern and outrage of all who want to help with this effort in Jackson.  Fortunately, many of the events staged by anti-abortionists recently have fallen flat and have not attracted the numbers they have been claiming.  We do want to be ever vigilant, and to this extent we'd like for anyone wanting to assist in the defense of JWHO to contribute to our security efforts.

We're requesting that there be no large counter demonstrations near the clinic during clinic hours.  There will be pro-choice events throughout the week at the clinic and in other parts of Jackson, but the area around the clinic is small and not conducive to large groups of people.  Patients don't have to walk in a public area from their cars to the clinic.  Our clinic parking lot is attached to the building, so there is no need for escorts.   In our experience, patients aren't able to distinguish between anti-abortion and pro-choice demonstrators, so any increase in numbers will only confuse them and make their access and comfort more difficult.

If you'd like to contribute to [the security] effort, please send contributions to:

National Women's Health Foundation
http://www.nationalwomenshealth.org
% Raleigh Women's Health Organization
    3613 Haworth Drive
    Raleigh, NC  27609

We promise that 100% of your contribution will go directly to security efforts at Jackson Women's Health Organization.  

Again, we appreciate everyone's volunteerism and energy, and hope for a peaceful week in Jackson.

As you have so rightly said, Max, they can use all the help they can get. Thank you for keeping this story on the front page.

by moiv on Tue Jun 20, 2006 at 09:42:59 PM EST

To counteract this aggressiveness in savvy ways that do not compromise our own values, takes a great deal of energy, alertness, and street wisdom as well as heart. We need to understand the thinking of these people so well that we can predict exactly what they will think and do, long before they do it---be so far ahead of them with effective actions they are neutralized before they can even get started.  

That will take an ability not to panic, or to become so angry that we are not able to see the most effective means at our disposal.  It will take numbers of people willing to forget ego long enough to cooperate.  It will take coming together with useful information, the ability to encourage thinking out side the box, and the creativity for powerful strategies that don't succumb to ideas from the dark side.

There are creditable publications and experienced resource people who should be sought out.  Experience is essential for there are many areas of a revolution which can cause serious mistakes and terrible discouragement and burnout.  The extreme right is willing to destroy even the planet we live on---the world we live in, because doing so is part of its dogmatic religious or power-structure belief system.  We need to be able to think better than that---hold the raging child with its kicking feet off the ground and its swinging arms out of reach until it is completely dismantled of its energy.  And we need to pull the carpet out from under the shadowed ones so sure of their own cleverness and authority.

These destructive children, and the dark lords will be reading books that tell them how to grab power----THE PORTABLE MACHIAVELLI, (the bible of all power-happy people), THE 48 LAWS OF POWER by Robert Greene, POWER PLAYS by Dick Morris.  It is also smart for the wise Rebel to understand these books too---to know how these children work.  But the wise Rebel will also be reading THE INTERNATIONAL BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS, COMPELLED TO CONTROL by J. Keith Miller, HOW CAN ONE SELL THE AIR? by Chief Seattle, DOING DEMOCRACY by Bill Moyer
Gene Sharp has written several books:
SOCIAL POWER and POLITICAL FREEDOM THE POLITICS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION parts one, two and three, and GANDHI as a POLITICAL STRATEGIST, THE ARROGANCE OF POWER by Senator J. William Fulbright.  It would also be good to understand the history of the Iroquois and how they were able to form the league that peacefully governed so many strong and powerful tribes.  Lots of information out there.

by TallTrees on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 03:30:37 PM EST