Adopt Water as Our Intellectual Focus.

@sea What do you mean by "hidden water?" Can you please elaborate?

Water was a focus last year as Kalamazoo is home to the largest inland oil spill in America (2010); activists in the Great Lakes are fighting against multiple invasions to the water system that holds 20% of the whole planet's water. and privatization - corporations will own the world's water supply.

It would be helpful if someone would create some bullet points for us listing the water concerns in Sac, locally and for the state of CA. and who the local corp, gov and activist players are.

drought, tar sands, tsunami radiation

CLEAN AIR, WATER, FOOD was the #1 on the Vision for a Democratic Future from NatGat1 in 2012 [with 203]
http://interoccupy.net/vision/202/
\Having access to safe drinking water and sanitation is central to living a life in dignity and upholding human rights. Yet billions of people still do not enjoy these fundamental rights.
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/SRWaterIndex.aspx

Energy Tycoon Dismisses Fracking Concerns, Says It 'Isn't Gonna Hurt Anybody'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/01/t-boone-pickens-fracking_n_5243406.html

Yet there's a record drought in California http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/28/307766319/between-farmers-and-frackers-calif-water-caught-in-tussle

At least 45 water agencies throughout the California are instituting aggressive, mandatory restrictions on water usage, in some cases going so far as to patrol streets and encourage people to snitch on wasteful neighbors.
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/californias_record_drought_just_got_a_lot_more_serious/

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/28/california-towns-begin-water-waste-patrols-amid-ongoing-drought/

In Sacramento, scientists met over the weekend to discuss the risk that the drought presents to the region’s wildlife: fish, birds and trees that are already endangered are now facing additional challenges. And according to Peter Moyle of the University of California, Davis, Center for Watershed Sciences, ”The problems created by the drought are just a harbinger of things to come.”

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Scientists-California-Drought-Threatens-Animals-256845171.html

Fracking and water scarcity http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/4004.cfm

Daniel, I mean water is the 900 pound gorilla in the corner of Occupy's room. Our Euro-American ideas illuminate the whole room except the corner. As though we had the ability to resolve the problem without listening first, to the elders of our original non-European keepers of the earth and keepers of the land. By not accomodating Idlenomore in 2013, we shut off the best source of knowledge about water that we have. And the Sacramento GA's fear of being trained in ethnic sensitivity, means we will probably resist going deep with Native Americans, even though ethnic sensitivity training is scheduled here in Sacramento on July 30. Elders are willing to help, except we are too blinded to let them. The actual "issue" of water is too deep for Western Modern Science. We have important water experts like Dan Bachman. And we also have elders willing to talk to us like Caleen Sisk. We'd prefer the expert, because we are more comfortable listening to knowledge derived from Western Modern Science. Traditional Ecological Knowledge is hidden from us.

+1 right. We are learning

Here's an article by Caleen Sisk http://www.indianz.com/News/2014/012652.asp

I couldn't find links for Dan Bachman

@sea as mentioned in another discussion, we did our best to accommodate INM; various chapters responded differently—NatGat was featured in one INM newsletter, other chapters joined the boycott. I would love to be at a panel where the Western expert and the Indigenous elder both participated; I think we could all learn a lot.

Sally G, Yes, we're doing our best. However our Western Modern Science, which is where "experts" come from, is not being balanced by Traditional Ecological Knowledge. For us to be successful, we'll have to start acting the way the colonists did not act. They assumed that they knew as much or more than the people here. There is little evidence that they were correct. The issue is not for us to learn to accomodate the national sovereigns. We have to learn to allow them to accomodate us. Our proactive stance is an illusion. We are reacting. Our experts must be vetted through a protocol that has not yet been invented. We are reacting to the results of expecting advanced national sovereigns to join the system that is destroying our human world.

I propose that the Culling Corruption, Curbing Corruption, Anti-corruption Campaigns be the focus. It is a broad spectrum that most all, if not all can agree needs to be tackled. Moreover, addressing the corruption covers most all the other issues like the theft or water, the abuse of water, the attempts being made by Nestle to buy up all water rights, where by as water is only available through bottling. Also the corruption that is at the root of the fracking issue, at the very least the oil is planned on being stolen from North America and shipped away a form of exploitation that ranks with the Nigerian exploitations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq2TBOHWFRc
http://poisonfire.org/

We could come at it both ways from corruption and water.