Thursday, September 13, 2007

UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights

At this moment at the UN, voting is underway on the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Shorter Chuck Strahl: "Canada's New Government™ is voting against the Declaration because it's inconsistent with the Things we want to Get Done to for Indigenous people". (In a CBC interview today, he actually said "Getting things done". No shit, he really said it: "Getting things done". I just saw/heard it. Are these guys bots??!!)

What are they worried about? It's a non-binding declaration, meant to be more of an aspirational document than anything else, and voting for it would be a great show of support. It couldn't override any laws already in place. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I see no valid reason to vote against this declaration.

Declaration passed -- only 4 countries voted No: Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand. Embarassing.