Meanwhile, the Peabody propaganda promulgated by hired PR guns, posing as local citizens, has been exposed in Seattle media as a lame hoax–apparently contrived by coal shipping industry consultants led by their main mouthpiece Craig Cole.

But the most interesting aspect of this colossal fraud by Peabody and Wall Street is the fact that the billions of tons of coal they want to ship across the US and the Pacific Ocean to sell in China doesn’t even belong to Peabody. It belongs to us, the American people. As revealed in a handy video by Greenpeace, the Powder River Basin coal is on public land, and the U.S. Government is giving it away for a dollar a ton to Peabody, so Wall Street can make a bundle while taxpayers get stuck with cleaning up their mess.

And it isn’t like we’re talking about subsidizing something worthwhile; when it comes to Peabody, we’re talking about the company that raped Appalachia and Black Mesa, brutalizing impoverished miners, and forcing Navajos to relocate so Peabody could turn West Virginia and Arizona mountains into toxic waste sites. Now they want us to pay them to do the same in Montana and Wyoming.

Maybe it’s time members of Northwest Washington Central Labor Council get their heads examined. Sucking up to Peabody is selling their soul.

But as Walia reports, assuming their sacred responsibilities by exercising their sovereignty is not up for negotiation. While Canada may continue its policies of coercion and corruption through its Indian Act system, the indigenous activists comprising the hereditary clan system of these First Nations are taking back their inherent power of self-governance by re-establishing their presence on the land.

As they challenge Canada’s corporations and authorities by defending indigenous territories, the clans exercising indigenous self-determination find strength in a return to collective decision-making. While this democratic resurgence might seem threatening to those who’ve been crushed, co-opted or corrupted by Canada’s Indian Act Band Council system, it is a a reflection of a new unity in community generated by the great awakening made visible by Idle No More. As Walia notes, “Their courage and tenacity have served as an inspiration for many social movements struggling against austerity, market fundamentalism and ecological destruction.”

As Galdu reports, though, perpetuating institutional prejudice has real world consequences, and authors who promote bigotry for profit must be held accountable. In the case of the West Papuans, those consequences include retroactive justification to US funding for Indonesian military death squads that have murdered 100,000 West Papuans in pursuit of plundering their territory alongside Australian, Canadian and American corporations.

As Papuan tribal leader Benny Wenda remarked, “What Diamond has written about my people is misleading about what the Indonesian military are doing. Indonesia tried to pretend that it was us that was violent and not them. This book is doing the same.” For readers who want to learn more, the West Papua Information Kit provides the historical background of the conflict.