Tag Archives: American Indian Movement

Oct 24-29 is Mile High Showdown, plus Obama, Tar Sands, 1% Robin Hood Tax

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Mile High Showdown, Oct 24 - Oct 29
DENVER- Is it a vanguard action? Check it out and decide, but make sure YOUR itinerary includes TUES 25TH protest of Tar Sands pipeline with American Indian Movement at the UC-Denver Auraria Campus, WED 26TH protest of Obama visit, also on Auraria Campus, and SAT 29TH global march to demand Robin Hood Tax, the 1% tax on all international banking transactions. Really, just 1%? The Robin Hood of yore took more like 99% and left his highborn victims with just enough to limp back to the castle. 1% from the 1% is a start.

Occupy Denver recognizes Colo. AIM, mixes metaphor to Unoccupy America!

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This weekend the General Assembly of Occupy Denver recognized that its intended occupation was actually a re-occupation, of lands to which original inhabitants lay claim. On Sunday the GA consensus voiced its solidarity with the American Indian Movement of Colorado who submitted a statement for ratification. It’s reprinted below via The Sole Reader:

COLORADO AIM’S CHALLENGE TO #OCCUPYDENVER

An Indigenous Platform Proposal for “Occupy Denver”

“Now we put our minds together to see what kind of world we can create for the seventh generation yet to come.”

John Mohawk (1944-2006), Seneca Nation

As indigenous peoples, we welcome the awakening of those who are relatively new to our homeland. We are thankful, and rejoice, for the emergence of a movement that is mindful of its place in the environment, that seeks economic and social justice, that strives for an end to oppression in all its forms, that demands an adequate standard of food, employment, shelter and health care for all, and that calls for envisioning a new, respectful and honorable society. We have been waiting for 519 years for such a movement, ever since that fateful day in October, 1492 when a different worldview arrived – one of greed, hierarchy, destruction and genocide.

In observing the “Occupy Together” expansion, we are reminded that the territories of our indigenous nations have been “under occupation” for decades, if not centuries. We remind the occupants of this encampment in Denver that they are on the territories of the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute peoples. In the U.S., indigenous nations were the first targets of corporate/government oppression. The landmark case of Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), which institutionalized the “doctrine of discovery” in U.S. law, and which justified the theft of 2 billion acres of indigenous territory, established a framework of corrupt political/legal/corporate collusion that continues throughout indigenous America, to the present.

If this movement is serious about confronting the foundational assumptions of the current U.S. system, then it must begin by addressing the original crimes of the U.S. colonizing system against indigenous nations. Without addressing justice for indigenous peoples, there can never be a genuine movement for justice and equality in the United States. Toward that end, we challenge Occupy Denver to take the lead, and to be the first “Occupy” city to integrate into its philosophy, a set of values that respects the rights of indigenous peoples, and that recognizes the importance of employing indigenous visions and models in restoring environmental, social, cultural, economic and political health to our homeland.

We call on Occupy Denver to adopt, as a starting point, the following:

1. To repudiate the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, to endorse the repeal of the papal bull Inter Caetera (1493) to work for the reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court case of Johnson v. M’Intosh 1823), and call for a repeal of the Columbus Day holiday as a Colorado and United States holiday.

2. To endorse the right of all indigenous peoples to the international right of self-determination, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status, and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural futures.

3. To demand the recognition, observance and enforcement of all treaties and agreements freely entered into `between indigenous nations and the United States. Treaties should be recognized as binding international instruments. Disputes should be recognized as a proper concern of international law, and should be arbitrated by impartial international bodies.

4. To insist that Indigenous people shall never be forcibly relocated from their lands or territories.

5. To acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and teach their spiritual and religious traditions customs and ceremonies, including in institutions of the State, e.g. prisons, jails and hospitals„ and to have access in privacy their religious and cultural sites, and the right to the repatriation of their human remains and funeral objects.

6. To recognize that Indigenous peoples and nations are entitled to the permanent control and enjoyment of their aboriginal-ancestral territories. This includes surface and subsurface rights, inland and coastal waters, renewable and non-renewable resources, and the economies based on these resources. In advancement of this position, to stand in solidarity with the Cree nations, whose territories are located in occupied northern Alberta, Canada, in their opposition to the Tar Sands development, the largest industrial project on earth. Further, to demand that President Barack Obama deny the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, proposed to run from the tar sands in Canada into the United States, and that the United States prohibit the use or transportation of Tar Sands oil in the United States.

7. To assert that Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions. They have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions. Further, indigenous peoples have the right to the ownership and protection of their human biological and genetic materials, samples, and stewardship of non-human biological and genetic materials found in indigenous territories.

8. To recognize that the settler state boundaries in the Americas are colonial fabrications that should not limit or restrict the ability of indigenous peoples to travel freely, without inhibition or restriction, throughout the Americas. This is especially true for indigenous nations whose people and territories have been separated by the acts of settler states that established international borders without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples affected.

9. To demand that the United States shall take no adverse action regarding the territories, lands, resources or people of indigenous nations without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples affected.

10. To demand the immediate release of American Indian political prisoner, Leonard Peltier, U.S. Prisoner #89637-132, from U.S. federal custody.

Finally, we also remind Occupy Denver that indigenous histories, political, cultural, environmental, medical, spiritual and economic traditions provide rich examples for frameworks that can offer concrete models of alternatives to the current crises facing the United States. We request that Occupy Denver actively utilize and integrate indigenous perspectives, teachers, and voices in its deliberations and decision-making processes.

Submitted 8 October 2011

American Indian Movement of Colorado

P.O. Box 292, Sedalia, CO 80135

AP says “In face of Federal inaction on Immigration”…

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Way to slant a headline! “State initiatives to stem immigration fizzle in the face of Federal inaction.” How about reporting it like this?
“Racist State Legislators, in the face of opposition from Mainstream Americans, who would be the REAL targets of their Racial Profiling initiatives, even with massive funding from Nazi organizations like News Corp and Freedom Corporation (Channel 5 news, the Gazette…) and their Corporate Overlords, despite Nazi-Klan related heavily subsidized “grass roots” organizations such as the TeaParty and Minutemen, with all that expensive and highly organized firepower, still failed to force their Racist Agenda on the states the same way they FAILED to do so on the Federal Government” Oooh, I bet that stings. When you call yourselves non-racist but want to profile people, most of whom are United States Citizens, based on their appearance of belonging to heavily stereotyped and demonized ethnic, social or religious groups?

You can say all you wish, Michelle Malkin, Sheriff Joe, Tancredo, Palin, Jan Brewer, all y’all Racist Freaks, that you don’t racially profile people, but when you’re trying to push that outrageous lie on any of the MILLIONS of Americans you’ve already profiled, like myself, we’ll call you the Liars you truly are.

When La Migra and local police organizations confronted Me, personally, with violent threats of sudden murder, pointing MACHINE GUNS at me, for the so-called “crime” of looking Mex or in one case looking Arabic in the words of the Officially Non-Racist officers “like a sand-nigger”, and then coward bitches like Malkin and Tancredo saying that doesn’t go Far Enough? Bitches, you LOST that argument. Calling me stupid or crazy for presenting the evidence, as your Lunatic Moron Minions have, repeatedly, (because that’s your only defense against the Truth, as always) didn’t stop MILLIONS of Americans from recognizing the same truth I’ve recognized and reported for so long.

TeaBags, RepubliKlan, Minutemen, your policies are and always were Racist and, since you apply them primarily against AMERICANS that makes you Anti-American Terrorists.

Y’all can line up and take turns helping yourseves to a Texas-size all you can eat buffet of Kiss my Dark-skinned Liberal Ass.

Y vuestros Mamas Tambien, putos.

Geronimo and a Senate Committee on Stereotypes

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Pursuant to the Operation Geronimo now shrouded in a cloud of “No, we aren’t going to give you any evidence beyond our word” maneuver? Well, no.
The committee hearing is on Racial Stereotyping as applied to American Indians and they HAD first dibs on naming rights, after the Chiricahua Apache and St Jerome (in Spanish it’s Geronimo) of course, but definitely somewhere further up the line than the Navy SEALS assassination squad/highly organized lynching. At the time Geronimo was arrested on essentially Terrorism charges, not much was known about Apache sepulture, either rituals or where the graves went. But instead of burying him in Arizona, Mexico, New Mexico or Colorado, in an Apache ceremony, they buried him at Ft Sill OK.
In the Apache (Prisoner Of War) section of the base cemetery. There’s a couple of new legends come about, that the skull of the Skull and Bones society was his. Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Folks who get a giggle from handling parts of dead humans would get an extra thrill from robbing an army Cemetery and the racist factor would make it even sweeter for them.
There’s an extra legend that representatives from some of the larger Apache Tribes, Chricahua, Mescalero, Jicarillo and White Mountain, re-buried him in a secret location.

Which, really, at the time of his death, Apache rituals for burial were actually secret, and I’ve had no desire whatsoever to disrespect their customs by “digging around” asking rude questions. But from somewhere the now familiar refrain of “we don’t want his followers making a shrine of his grave” was pulled out and he was buried in Ft Sill instead of New Mexico.
There was a lawsuit against the United States Army and the Skull and Bones society filed in 2009 and dismissed LAST YEAR, seeking the return of the skull and bones so they could be returned to be reburied in New Mexico.

On the 99th anniversary of Geronimo’s death a group of 20 of the warrior’s decendants sued the U.S. government, Skull and Bones and Yale in an attempt to rebury their ancestor’s bones near his birthplace.

In 2010 Judge Richard Roberts granted a Justice Department motion to dismiss the suit. Geronimo’s relatives, he said, failed to establish that the government waived its right not to be sued. Roberts also dismissed the lawsuit against Skull and Bones and Yale, saying the plaintiffs cited a law that applies only to Native American cultural items excavated or discovered after 1990.

Meaning. if you’re Rich enough and have enough ties to the Officially Unofficial American Aristocracy, you can do with the bones of any Mere Peasant whatever the fuck you want.

A Bush-appointed probably-skull-and-bones member, so-called “Justice” said so.
The so-called “Justice Department” didn’t want to investigate or prosecute the desecration of Indian graves, what a SURPRISE that was. Bunch of Racist Pricks.

Maybe somebody should find out where Judge Roberts Momma is buried, dig her nasty mouldered ass out of the ground and chop THAT up, see how HE and the other Racist Pricks like THAT?

I think the Bush Family used Geronimo’s bones to sodomize each other.

Give the Black Hills back to the Lakota

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Close down the strip-mine gold operation in Deadwood, stop maintaining the blasphemous idols carved onto Mount Rushmore, stop maintaining the Custer National Monument, let them rot into the Earth. They poison the very heart of the Earth Mother, Wakan Tonka. That means not “Great Spirit” like it’s usually translated, but The Great Buffalo.
The Lakota and other “sioux” tribes, and other Northern Plains tribes hold the Black Hills to be exactly that Heart. It’s said that from satellite images the Black Hills look like a massive bison heart. That might be a Rorshacht test, an inkblot or a cloud that you can project onto, or a seance where the medium will tell you, or rather, you’ll tell him/her exactly what you wanted to hear.
Maybe, but it sure does look like a bison heart.
Mount Rushmore and the Gold and now, coal mining operations are literally carving the still beating heart of the Earth. The Earth screams at us to stop, but the Big Money men don’t listen.

They carve images of some of their leading Capitalists onto the walls of that heart, and command all the people of America to pay to maintain their blasphemous idolatry.
Deadwood was founded by Lt Colonel George A. Custer while he was still in the Army. An illegal encampment of illegal immigrants onto the ultimate in American Land. Unlike migrant workers with the same title, they came not to try make an honest living, not to keep alive the hope of citizenship, the fabled “land of opportunity” touted in the propaganda.

They came to slaughter Wakan Tonka slowly, carve her open and cut holes in her heart while she’s still alive.
The Supreme Court very recently ruled that the land was, indeed, illegally seized, and offered as repayment … a settlement that would be less than a hundredth of a penny on every ten dollars taken out by the greed freaks.
Close down Sturgis, close down Deadwood. Open the gates of the Concentration/POW camps like Wounded Knee and Pine Ridge “reservations”.

Give the land back and save your Pious self-righteous “concern” for whether the Lakota and other sioux will make a profit from THEIR land. Don’t ask what they will do with it, it’s none of your God-damned business. You could use that same logic to lock me into servitude, where all my property (such as it is) could be seized and administered by “those who can manage it better”.
Who’s the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, Hosni Mubarak, Queen Elizabeth the Second? Hmm? Whoever it is, by the logic which denies the Lakota and, by extension, every tribe in America, full title to their lands, anybody who is NOT the richest man in the world could have his property seized and “administered” for him by those who are richer.

Give them back their land and don’t worry about what they’ll do with it. It will be a damn sight better than what the Thieves have done with it.

None of that “Noble Savage” crap either, it’s protectionist talk, “The Noble Savage NEEDS the Great White Father (a title invented by King George the Second of England) to protect him!”

And it’s just an excuse to take what isn’t yours and pretend that you’re “helping” the victims of your thefts and murders.
There were more Congressional Medals of Honor given to U.S. soldiers for committing ONE episode of genocide, the Wounded Knee Massacre, (edited to correct) than for any other battle in any other single war in American History. Really heroic, slaughtering children and elderly, men and women alike.
More medals given the murderers for those actions than were given in the entirety of World War Two, or the American involvement therein. Such Gallantry.

On Memorial Day there’s always a tribute in Washing Tundy Sea for those given the CMOH. That ceremony is corrupted and tainted and shit-stained by the medals given for that action.

Yeah, I know I’m in a state which worships Custer, Chivington, Carson, Palmer, Stanton, and the other murderous rogues who accompanied them on their rampages.

I realize too that their descendants live all around me and will be angry that I “slandered” great-great-grandpappy like that.
Your grandfathers dishonored their own names, and you bring shame to your own by continuing to worship the murders and thefts they committed.

Give the Black Hills back to the Lakota.

Brits on Kenya: “Oopsies!!”

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Turns out that the common knowledge of the past 50+ years was right, the American backed British colonial government was, despite American and British denials, murdering, torturing and “disappearing” people, just like they did in every other nation where they sent in the Royal Marines to take over the local management and “bring civilization to the Wogs”
I’m sure the redcoats would love to see that particular word disappear, but hey, it shows the true nature of Imperialism and Colonialism in all its ugly inglory.
What that means HERE, you know how the TeaBags and other Right Wing Extremists like the Klan and their “unofficial” affiliates the Minutemen like to harp on President Obama’s Dad being a MauMau? And that the term “freedom fighter” is just a Liberal euphemism for barbaric terrorist? Like how the MauMau were supposedly preying on the defenseless and weak Colonial Overlords, the Darkie Horde (the stupid bastards say the same thing about the Nat Turner Rebellion in American Slavery) rising up against their lawful White masters with no reason, because they had been well treated, and given as much Human Rights as one could appropriately give Savages…
I capitalized that last because Michael “Savage” Weiner likes to do that stupid racist bullshit, depicting any “savages” who defy the Natural White Order as brutal, vicious and stupidly bloodthirsty.
The British also depicted his Irgun cousins the same way. Guess there’s an Uncle Tom in every group.
But the notion, for the past more than 50 years, was that the British were a benevolent Master Race and merely “misconstrued” as being The Actual Bloodthirsty Vicious Savages in the equation.
Well, TeaBags and other Racist organizations,
“Eat and smile, byotches!”

Ok so that sounds unnecessarily harsh. No Indeed. It’s Necessary.
“Oh, Jonah with his Whitey Bashing again!” not really. I AM half white myself. I could point out that Indigenous Rebellions including oh, let’s see, every American Indian nation/tribe fighting back against people who came in, took everything and decided to kill up a mess of folks for not getting off “their” land. But that would be yet another episode of overkill. And we’re not supposed to report on things that happened in the past, but since “the past” starts anew at every heartbeat that would conveniently silence people. Also it’s supposed to be bad manners and just plain Tacky to point out when “the past” is still happening.
And enabled by Historical Hysterical Revisionists like Fox News, Heritage Foundation and the TeaTards and MinuteMurderers.
Sure, they like to dress up and re-enact scenes from the Revolution and the Civil War ooo bad me! Naughty Wicked! I didn’t call it “the war between the states”.
Scenes where British Colonialists rebelled over paying taxes which supported the very Colonialist armies which enabled them to remain in America in the first damn place. And killed mostly Other Colonials and British Soldiers, with a few Hessian mercenaries and of course as many American Indians as they could fit into the killing spree.

I mean, that IS what the original Tea Party and Minutemen were all about. So they should know a little bit about the “history” they portray, right?
Of course they don’t, or won’t mention it, sweep it under the ol’ rug. It would be embarrassing for them to admit what exact kind of Bullshit they’re trying to foist off on the rest of us.

And that’s a key point, they’re ashamed or, at least, realize that if they ever told the Truth of their motives people would Not Like Them.

And since they represent a minority opinion, they have to convince as many people as possible to Like Them. Otherwise their bullshit plans fall through.

Like in Kenya. Ireland. Oh, did I forget to remember Ireland? My Bad.
Ireland which they occupied for more than 400 years and did things like force the Natives to speak only the English Language under pain of death, forced them to pay “reparations” to the Crown for “liberating them” in the form of all the Gross National Product, at the height of the Potato Famine the British Admiralty reported X number of tons of wheat and other grains exported from Ireland to pay off “their debt” and on the next page reporting how many Irish children starved to death that day.
Real sweet fellows. And this being done to a people who were the very picture of European Whiteness. Or, as the Uptight WASP yankees in New England put it, when describing other citizens of New England “JNOKDs”
“They’re Just Not Our Kind, Dear” Imagine a group of elitists whose White Supremacism is directed against even their fellow whites.

So the myth of the MauMau being a band of savages bent on hacking apart innocent whites for no reason whatsoever, while popular with the TeaTards and MinutePukes and other Republican’t Racist Groups, is just that, a myth.

And now, the British Crown has acknowledged it.
Oh, sure, the British Crown has acknowledged it many times in the past, much like a serial wife-beater will apologize to his ol’ lady as she’s laying in the hospital bed, until she drops first the restraining order and then the charges.

They’re forced into it by their own behavior.
There are many who are repeatedly sucked back into it every time.
John O’Donnell of local fame, who had the Colorado Springs police bust up a peaceful and legitimate entry in an Irish parade 4 years ago, while one of the other entries, the Al Khaly Shrine marching band, were playing the British National Anthem.

Some of the people on the sidelines said that St Patricks day is no place for Politics, while another band was playing “Wearin’ o’ the Green”.
A very non-political song, of course.
Just that the lyrics include
“They’re (the Brits) Hangin’ men,
and hangin’ women
fa’ the wearin’ o’ the green”

Or the British soldiers in the parade celebrating their alliance with the Bu’ush Regime in a war based on Lies against one of their former “possessions” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing political or Pro-British about that either.

A war closely related to the rebellion in Kenya. And the Rebellion in Ireland.

Revisiting the Weather Underground’s 1970 pantheon of empire-fighters

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Former Weatherman Bill Ayers, now a respected professor of education, was recently nominated for emeritus status but ran into trouble when a right wing blogger complained that a 1970 underground publication coauthored by Ayers, Prairie Fire, had been dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. (Let’s not leave aside the possibility that lone Sirhan was the fall guy in a conference room full of CIA operatives, the immediately the suppressed narrative, which would make Sirhan a victim among the 209 other anti-imperialist heroes to which the Weather Underground wanted to dedicate their efforts.) While hindsight might reveal the WUO to have erred with some of its honorees, it seems likely the majority might be worthy of a following up.

Preceding the longer list is a preliminary dedication to the three WUO comrades who died in the NYC townhouse accident: Teddy Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins.

The full page list framed this dedication:

To Harriet Tubman and John Brown
To all who continue to fight
To all political prisoners in the US

Here’s the total list, for your own wiki googling, alphabetized and annotated. The dedication page of PRAIRIE FIRE changed between the varied mimeographed copies produced by WUO satellite publishers around the US between the years 1970 through 1974. Bracketed names represent people not included on all reprints.

Frank Khali Abney
Sundiata Acoli
Ahmend
Akil
Eugene Allen
W. T. Allen
Gary Alston
Michael Alston – BPP, BLA
James Amaker
Hekima Anna – RNA11
Karl Armstrong -New Years Eve Gang
Atuma
Robert Austin
Richie B.
Baba
Kwasi Balagoon
Joe Bandy
[Jimmy Barett]
Leon Bates
Herman Bell – BPP, SF8
Odell Bennett
Bro. Bernard
Jesse Bishop
Debbie Black
Victor Gerardo Bono – MOSCA
Anthony Bottoms – Jalil Abdul Muntaqim – BLM, NY3
Billy X Boulware
Clarence Jabari Shinda Bount
Joseph Bowen
Raymond Brooks
H. Rap Brown
Henry Sha sha Brown – BLA
Isaiah Brown
Richard Brown – BPP, SF8
[Sarah Brown]
Marilyn Buck
Fred Burton
Carter Camp – AIM
Larry Cannon
Michael Clark – De Mau Mau
Dennis Cole
Oscar Collazo – PRNP
Marshal Conway
Paul Coppella
Andres Figueroa Cordero – PRNP
Carol Crooks
Tony Cruz
E. Dabney
Dalou
James Daniels
Alicia Davis
Tyrone Davis
Alexander de Hoyo
[Albert Deutschmann]
Fleeta Drumgo – SQ6
Timothy Earl Dudley
Ahmed Evans
Jesse Evans
Keith X Farries
James Fedd
Stephen X Ferguson
Juan Fernandez
Micky Finn
Fish
Joe-Joe Fleischman
Irving Flores – PRNP
Allen Fooke Jr.
Robert Foulks
Eugene Gaither
Thomas Gaither
Denny Gathing
Nathaniel Gides
Frank Goree
Ernest Grahm?
Jim Grant
Nancy Harras
Jodi Jean Harris
Richard Harris – BPP, Panther21
Stanley Harris
James Hastings
Herman Hawkins
Robert Hayes
Alf Hill
David Hilliard – BPP
Fred Hilton – Kamau Sadiki – BLA
[Bruce Hobson] – Venceremos
[Jean Hobson] – Venceremos
Mark Holder -BLA
[Doc Holiday]
Louis X Holloway
Hutch
Thomas Ingram
Andrew Jackson – BLA
[Chester Jackson]
Jaja
Patricia James
Ollie Jamonds
Alfredo Jasper
Anthony X Jenkins
Randolph X Jenkins
David Johnson – SQ6
Edward Joseph X. – Jamal – BPP, Panther21
Gari Kaiser
Ron Karenga -creator of Kwanzaa
Muhonnet Kassimir
Ja Ja Omar Kenyatta
Melvin Kearney – BLA
Samuel Killey
Kimanthi
Kin-Du
Stephanie Klein
Komie Kombuibe
Lolita Lebron – PRNP
Russell Little – SLA
Jesse Lopez
Hugh Lumpkin
Albert Lyon
Gail Madden
Ruchell Cinque Magee – SQ6
Louise Martinez
Randy McCleary
George Meritt
Gloria Miller
Armado Miramon
Rafael Miranda – PRNP
Rose Mohrstine
Gilbert Montague
Richard Dhoruba Moore
Obgarofowe James Morse
Benjamin Murdock
[Morton Newman] – Venceremos
Roy Nixt
Karrim Nyabadfudi
Imari Obadele – RNA11
Odessabakely
Alberto Ortiz
Jacqueline Paige
Charles Parker
Darrell Peatry – De Mau Mau
Betty Person
Hugo Pinnell – SQ6
William Poole
William Prather
Eller Geronimo Pratt
Euther X Presha
Arthur Prince
Offaga Quaddus – RNA11
Oji
Outlaw
T. S. Reddy
Joseph Remiro – SLA
Harrison Robison
Rock
Norma Rockamore
Eddy Sanchez
Rodolfe Sanchez
Marvin Saunders
Ruben Scott – BPP
[Robert Seabrock] – Venceremos
Assata Shakur
Shango
Harold Simmons
John Simone
Samual Singeton
Sirhan Sirhan
Marvin X Smith
Nathaniel Smith
Martin Sostre -bookseller
Johnny Larry Spain – SQ6
Gloria Strickland
Kenneth X Swanson
Luis Talamantes – SQ6
Willie Tate – SQ6
Ben Taylor
Donald Taylor – De Mau Mau
James Taylor
Bro. Thomas
John Thomas – BLA
Steve Tillman
Alexander X Tisdale
Francisco Torres – NY5
Gabriel Torres – NY5
Toukie
Tommy Trentino
Herman Wallace – Angola3
Robert Wamack
Thomas Wansley
Mamie Lee Ward
Albert Washington – Nuh – BPP, NY3
Fred Waters
Jesse Watson
Marshall Weathers
Bob Wells
Warren Wells – BLM
Fred Shanda West
Clifford Whaley
Clifton Wiggins
John Wilkerson
Deborah Williams
Ricky Williams
Tine Williams
Robert Wilson – De Mau Mau
Mira Witherspoon
Deothea Woodburn
Albert Woodfox – Angola3
Nathaniel Wright III
Candice Yacqui
Robert Youngblood

Marlon Brando’s lost Oscar speech

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In 1973 Marlon Brando declined a best actor award for the Godfather in solidarity with the American Indian. Yada yada yada, only that much we remember. Something to do with Wounded Knee, but the average American might be excused for confusing the massacre of 300 Lakota in 1890, the contemporary deadly FBI-AIM confrontation, and Dee Brown’s bestseller. A new documentary Reel Injun, about Hollywood’s skewed portrayal of Native Americans, unearths Apache Sasheen Littlefeather’s incredibly poised delivery of Brando’s Oscar message.

Littlefeather was confined by time limits to present only this abbreviation, interrupted by audience booing and then simultaneous applause. Youtube has the clip, for which the transcript is below.

“Marlon Brando … has asked me to tell you, in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently —because of time— but I will be glad to share with the press afterward, that he must… very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award.

And the reason for this being… are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry… excuse me… and on television in movie re-runs, and also the recent happenings at Wounded Knee.

I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will, in the future…our hearts and our understanding will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.”

Brando’s formal statement was released to reporters after the ceremonies.

For 200 years we have said to the Indian people who are fighting for their land, their life, their families and their right to be free: ”Lay down your arms, my friends, and then we will remain together. Only if you lay down your arms, my friends, can we then talk of peace and come to an agreement which will be good for you.”?

     When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right. We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did. For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues.?

?     But there is one thing which is beyond the reach of this perversity and that is the tremendous verdict of history. And history will surely judge us. But do we care? What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live up to our commitment when every page of history and when all the thirsty, starving, humiliating days and nights of the last 100 years in the lives of the American Indian contradict that voice??

?     It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one’s neighbor have become dysfunctional in this country of ours, and that all we have done, all that we have succeeded in accomplishing with our power is simply annihilating the hopes of the newborn countries in this world, as well as friends and enemies alike, that we’re not humane, and that we do not live up to our agreements.?

?     Perhaps at this moment you are saying to yourself what the hell has all this got to do with the Academy Awards? Why is this woman standing up here, ruining our evening, invading our lives with things that don’t concern us, and that we don’t care about? Wasting our time and money and intruding in our homes.?

?     I think the answer to those unspoken questions is that the motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing his as savage, hostile and evil. It’s hard enough for children to grow up in this world. When Indian children watch television, and they watch films, and when they see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know.?

?     Recently there have been a few faltering steps to correct this situation, but too faltering and too few, so I, as a member in this profession, do not feel that I can as a citizen of the United States accept an award here tonight. I think awards in this country at this time are inappropriate to be received or given until the condition of the American Indian is drastically altered. If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.?

?     I would have been here tonight to speak to you directly, but I felt that perhaps I could be of better use if I went to Wounded Knee to help forestall in whatever way I can the establishment of a peace which would be dishonorable as long as the rivers shall run and the grass shall grow.?

?     I would hope that those who are listening would not look upon this as a rude intrusion, but as an earnest effort to focus attention on an issue that might very well determine whether or not this country has the right to say from this point forward we believe in the inalienable rights of all people to remain free and independent on lands that have supported their life beyond living memory.?

?     Thank you for your kindness and your courtesy to Miss Littlefeather. Thank you and good night.

How to discuss the “mosque rule” at the Powwow… Suggestions?

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The Powwow will be September 25 at Rock Ledge Ranch, “technically” according to the West Side Pioneer, local newsletter, a part of the Garden of the Gods. Which is a sacred site for American Indians.
The same people who put this really offensive sign up at Bancroft Park that Old Colorado City was the first “permanent settlement” in the region. Meaning, the First Permanent WHITE Settlement. By the way, there’s a town bordering Ft Worth called White Settlement. Name says it all, too. You can get arrested for the crime of “Being, while Black or Brown” but I digress.
Neglects the fact that even the Anasazi had settlements throughout the region, most within 300 miles of here. People in our International audience might not think that’s close, but in the Western United States, that’s known as “right around the corner”. Even the migrant tribes had their regular spots that they “migrated” to every year. Much like Rich Folks who have a summer home in the Hamptons and a winter play-house in Vail or Aspen and the beach house in Nassau, and the long term lease on that chateau in Monte Carlo. Only not exactly on a “at whim” basis.
But the Garden of the Gods, and the Medicine Wheel at Standing Bear Butte, indeed the entire Black Hills, and Hueco Tanks, and The Iowa Bluffs, all have gotten the status of being places where people can worship freely in the past 32 years. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1978.
What Custer was trying to break up at Little Bighorn was a RELIGIOUS GATHERING. A “punitive” expedition because several of the Tribes met on grounds the U.S. Government flatly refused to recognize as neutral. They assigned each tribe a reservation and told them to stay on those reservations.

The gathering at Little Bighorn was to make medicine against a white folks encroachment on not only Reservation Land, but holy ground, at Deadwood. By the way, if you buy “Black Hills Gold” you’re buying into the murder of the Black Hills, which are regarded as the Heart of the World.

It goes beyond the example of the Mount Rushmore statues being like breaking into the Vatican and carving your name on all the walls.

There was a Colorado Statute that forbade, on pain of DEATH, practicing the American Indian rituals.

The Garden of the Gods is ringed by interloping “private” properties which were built in defiance of the treaties establishing it as a religious site. One of them built by General William Jackson Palmer, Real Estate Thief and Corporate Welfare Recipient Extraordinaire.
His idolatrous statue is parked in the middle of the intersection of Platte and Nevada right by Acacia Park. The “good christian” City Leaders who considered and still consider the Indian rituals to be satanic have no problem at all with breaking the commandment about Graven Images and Idolatry when it comes to worship of Murderous Thieves like Palmer and Custer.

What’s that you said, Jonah? STILL oppose the Religious Freedom of the First Amendment being extended to Non-White ethnic and religious Groups?

Why, YES, children, they still ARE fighting tooth and nail in the federal courts to overturn every speck of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.

Just like they’re trying to repeal the 14th Amendment because they don’t want Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, Arabic, really anybody who doesn’t measure up to, and conform to, their Lily White Anglo Saxon Protestant vision of America, to have even Basic Rights such as citizenship, even if we’re born here.

Including and now especially Religious Freedom.
Some of the Rabid Hatred coming out of the Anti-Mosque Nazi’s mouths and keyboards seek to demonize, and demand the cancellation of all rights of citizenship accorded to, Muslim, Jewish and CHRISTIAN sects that don’t join in to their Howling Hate Mob.
How long is it going to take before the Hate Freaks decide to demonize American Indians again?

George Walker Bush decided as the Imperial Governor of Texas to challenge the AIRFA 78 based on the Hueco Tanks case. And has expanded it to a huge challenge to American Indian Tribal Sovereignty in every aspect of our lives. Some of the Anti-Everybody Hate Groups want to forbid the use of non-English languages even in our homes and that is how deeply the issues cut into our lives.

They say that it cripples our childrens chances of learning the Ever-so-superior English, which they also claim to be the pre-eminent language of International Business. Which is bullshit. First they don’t want OUR kids succeeding in business, they want us to work for them at less than minimum wage and be perpetually Debt Slaves to their rigged “free” market.

Second the language of international commerce is FRENCH. Many if not most of the nations of the world have two (or more) official languages. For most of those nations French is the second. MEXICO has two official languages, one of them is Spanish, can you guess the other? But they lie to us with the dream that if we work for them diligently enough and put enough money into their pockets, through our labor, they’ll grant us a place at the Trough with the big pigs. How many dozens or hundreds of generations will that take with the Guaranteed Debt for Life wages they insist are more generous than necessary?
Lies beget further lies. They also say we have freedom of speech, unless we oppose their Big Pig government, freedom to peaceably assemble unless see above, freedom of religion except in cases which see above, freedom of the press except see above…

They say it’s the “original intent” of a mysterious and shifting group they call the “Founding Fathers”.

If we were to accept all the entrants in that parade of Farcical Founding Fathers, we run across bigots, slaveowners and one in particular, the one they cite as a Founding Father (actually two, with the same name, Cotten Mather) Fundamentalist preachers two hundred years before the term Fundamentalist was invented. One of whom said that American Indians, since we weren’t mentioned in Genesis, must be constructs of Satan, demons in human form.

Conveniently forgets that the continents of North and South America and Australia and Antarctica aren’t mentioned in Genesis either.

So let’s narrow it down a little more, get a real grip on the “original Intent” of the “founding fathers” regarding freedom of speech, press, religion, association… say, the Delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
How unanimous was this Original Intent? May to September, 4 months, and had not ONE unanimous accord for any of the Articles. And the Bill of Rights? The majority of them voted against it being included. That’s why they’re the first ten AMENDMENTS.

But these Dead Rich Bastards are supposed to tell us that the actual words of the Constitution don’t mean what they say, we’re supposed to do a Mass National Seance and divine what their original intent on it is. Especially on the issue of Religious Freedom.

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and the rest of the Right Wing “leaders” are doing nothing to rebuke the Extremist Racists in their party, such as Pamela Geller, who proposes imprisoning or banishing CHRISTIANS and JEWS who don’t fall into line and chant the anti-Mosque Hate Mob Speech.

This religious freedom which the Right Wing FREAKS attack under the name of “Liberty” is at the core of national sovereignty issues. They also call themselves “nationalists” but refuse to grant the same rights of sovereignty to OTHER NATIONS. Iraq and Afghanistan leap to mind. Honduras, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, there’s a long list. Including every Indian Treaty ratified under the auspices of Article 6 of the Constitution, and thus having the full force of law equally to the Constitution itself.

They set themselves up as Imperialists under the name “nationalism”. In Maritime Law that’s called “flying false colors” something pirates do.

It’s also called “Lying”.

What happens if these freaks can dismantle constitutional law and the treaties entered into, in accordance with the Constitution?

Simple. They’ll be declaring the Corporate Government of America to be Divinely Anointed Emperors of the entire world. Sarah Palin even says that GOD tells her that it’s His wishes to do so.

Funny how God doesn’t just tell everybody else that all at once, isn’t it?

Funny how God tells them and nobody else that they have a Divine Mission to take over lands belonging to other people, like the Iraqis and Iranians and North Koreans and the Tsalagi (cherokee) Tribe with the sacred mountain at Chattanooga Tennessee…

Funnier still how all these places, like with the Black Hills gold mines, and the Sacred Mountain in Chattanooga, which has coal reserves their corporations covet, and of course the Oil Fields of Arabia and Persia and Africa and Venezuela… all put money into the pockets of the Corporations who they also swear allegiance to.

Real funny, ain’t it? Ska-roo that noise.

An Idea whose time has come…

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Seriously, since the NeoCons still insist that we have Hegemony over the entire known Universe, a religious belief that we are so much better than the rest of the world that we owe it to them to run their countries for them… then why not grant each person in each Conque errr… “Liberated” country full United States Citizenship? My soon-to-be brother in law is Tongan by birth, he very seldom goes TO Tonga and was raised in Hawaii from the time he was about a year old. Homeland Security cleared him soon after 9/11, he had a job at DFW loading meals onto flights for AA. One time some Fearful Freak Redneck got all nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven stupid about a Large Dark-skinned fellow being on the plane with his Obviously Non-Racist Arse. Stupid fears, held by stupid people.

So he was going to marry my sister last week. Cool, eh? But I.C.E. has to have the last word on everything, he didn’t have his ORIGINAL Birth Certificate, so the Frightened Ones wouldn’t let them get their marriage license until he proves (apparently with something more than the huge file that the Frightened Feds keep on every “foreign national”, even and especially those who grew up here) that he is who he says he is.

I mean, come the hell on, they’ve got hair samples (do you think for a moment that a Racist and Fascist Totalitarian Police State wouldn’t have that? think not? Welcome to the REAL world, check your delusions at the door upon entrance) fingerprints, biometrics, iris scans, etc etc etc… as well as a dossier of his entire life history, but he can’t get his ID card updated without proving who he is without his Original Birth Certificate.

One of Miss Johnnies sons was born on Guam, but they didn’t make it to the Air Force Base hospital so he wasn’t on U.S. soil. Even though the U.S. Military runs Guam any way they see fit, but only in the Proper Neo-Colonialist Manner, they only beat the Wogs three times a week. How Very Civilized of them. So he’s a citizen, both his parents including his dad who died from Agent Orange in service to the USAF, were citizens, but there’s still that Birth Certificate bullshit.

My other sister, Audrey, same way, born at home off base in London…
Citizen, but not “native”. And, has trouble getting her Drivers License renewed because of that Original Birth Certificate.

Which is purest bullshit, just like the manufactured FAKE scandal about President Obama’s Birth Certificate.

Guam and Tonga were added to the “not really conquered vassal possessions even though we treat them as such” list through the Wondrous agency of World War 2.

And kept in such bondage by the U.S. Military “needing” the bases in THEIR countries in order to maintain our delusion of Masters over sea and land. “We goddamn OWN the world, so we NEED those bases to keep the Peasant Natives from thinking they own their own countries!”

Audrey was born in England the same way. There are literally Millions of Americans born abroad who have Full Citizenship from birth… except they have to prove they’re citizens, every time some Power-Tripping Immigration agent feels like making them dance.

AND… lest we think that actually being Born in the USA, like myself and Barack Obama were, actually entitles us to at laest a little less hassle… nope. I was born in Topeka, a couple hundred miles from the Geographic Center of the Contiguous American States.

I still get harrassed by Cops and ICE agents because my Native American ancestry makes me “look mex” or “Ay-Rab” or whatever the Racist Bastards’ ” Hated-group-du-jour” is.

Why should I or anybody else have to prove to some Bigoted Redneck Asswipe that I was born in America? I don’t owe it to them.

Too, the U.S. doesn’t have a square foot of land that wasn’t taken, at gunpoint, from the original inhabitants. From my Personal Files, you’re not allewed to “look mex” in America, even though the Mexican INDIANS, conquered first by the Spaniards, had more than a third of their territory seized in yet another War Based On Lies, their dark skins endowed by God and their Spanish Names endowed on them by their prior conquerors make them, in the eyes of the Haters who do the dirty work for the Rich, “beaners, wetbacks, spicks, whatever other hate-filled retarded namecalling can be heaped on them” and, the Border Patrol/ICE have full license to stop anybody who “looks Mex” and demand absolute proof that the person is actually here legally.

They do it to me. On the occasions when they pointed loaded firearms at me, they even said that it was my fault because I “look Mex”. This in El Paso where considerably more than half the population “looks Mex”.

They also reserve unto themselves the “right” to KILL anybody who objects to this kind of Racist Treatment.

In AMERICA, “land of the free” as the Stupid Song says. (and they wonder why I don’t stand up when they play it, either)

As long as people can be Racially Profiled without any recourse in the Courts, there is no “land of the Free”.
My swarthy skin and black hair comes from my Indian ancestry. Yet I’m treated as an “illegal” in my own country, by racist murdering pricks.

And ordered to “sit down and shut up” about it by Sarah Palin fans. And told to be grateful to the Army for giving me the “right” to be shown that treatment.

NLG DU chapter hosts Ward Churchill

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National Lawyers Guild
DENVER- Ward Churchill will speak Tues, Oct 7, 12-1pm at DU’s Sturm College of Law, Room 180, on THE MYTH OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM, sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild. Detractors are already raising a stir. They’re not scholars, what stake do they have in repudiating Churchill’s work?

If they are simply cheerleading the Eichmann-remark backlash which led to Churchill’s dismissal, the charges of plagiarism seem to have already been debunked. Churchill’s colleagues have weighed in with their testimony, and leading academics have likewise spoken against the actions taken against him.

Nevertheless, the National Lawyers Guild got some flak for sponsoring this lecture. Here’s a note circulated to its members:

Dear NLG:
I am dismayed that you are sponsoring a talk by Ward Churchill. I do not regard him as a fit spokesperson for the progressive movement. While his firing was undoubtedly motivated by the opprobrium engendered by his outrageous and ill-considered comparison of the people in the World Trade Center to Adolf Eichmann, the grounds cited by the University of Colorado for his firing are plagiarism, a serious breach of academic ethics. Churchill is a fourth-rate thinker, he should not have been granted a doctoral degree in the first place, and he should not now be able to peddle his mediocre cant on the lecture circuit — why are you enabling him to do so, and why do imagine that he is qualified to address the issue of academic freedom in general? It is clear that his comments were not made pursuant to his work as an academic, so whether his firing was justified or not, his case is hardly exemplary of the infringement of academic freedom. I do not plan to attend.

I’ll withhold the idiot’s name. But let’s look into what the email author did not, before opening his trap to parrot the usual disinfo talking points. From Tom Mayer, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado at Boulder:

The research misconduct charges against Ward Churchill are of two general kinds: charges of faulty research and charges of plagiarism. The faulty research accusations have been largely discredited through the efforts of professors Eric Cheyfitz, Michael Yellow Bird, David Stannard, Huanani-Kay Trask, James Craven, Ruth Hsu, and others. These independent scholars, all of whom are intimately familiar with Native American history and culture, have shown that the Report of the Investigative Committee (henceforth called Report) finding Churchill guilty of research misconduct contains numerous errors of omission and commission. The Report improperly converts legitimate scholarly controversies into indictments of the positions taken by Professor Churchill.
…
Procedural fairness in modern jurisprudence requires that accusation, formal charging, decisions about evidence, and imposition of penalties should be clearly separated. This has not happened in the case of Ward Churchill. The CU administration, usually in the person of Provost Philip DiStefano, has functioned as Churchill’s accuser, grand jury, tribunal selector, and sentencing judge. This concatenation of roles makes it easy for political motivations to penetrate the process of adjudication. While a charade of academic due process has been maintained, the treatment of Ward Churchill strongly resembles a political lynching. The plagiarism charges against Professor Churchill are superannuated, unproven, substantively inconsequential, and either wrongheaded or misdirected. His reputation as a scholar has suffered egregiously and unjustifiably as a consequence.

A number of academic luminaries published this May 2007 advert in the NYT Review of Books: An Open Letter Calling on the University of Colorado to Reverse its Recommendation to Dismiss Professor Ward Churchill. An excerpt:

The relentless pursuit of and punitive approach of the University of Colorado at Boulder to Professor Ward Churchill is a revealing instance of the ethos that is currently threatening academic freedom. The voice of the university and intellectual community needs to be heard strongly and unequivocally in defense of dissent and critical thinking. And one concrete expression of such a resolve is to oppose the recommended dismiss Ward Churchill from his position as a senior tenured faculty member.
…
Without nurturing critical thought, learning tends toward the sterile and fails to challenge inquiring minds. For this reason alone, it is crucial that we who belong to the academic community join together to protect those who are the targets of repressive tactics, whether or not we agree with the ideas or expressive metaphors relied upon by a particular individual.

Signed by:
Derrick Bell, Visiting Professor of Law, New York Univ. School of Law
Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Juan Cole, University of Michigan
Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University
Richard Delgado, University Distinguished Professor of Law, and Derrick Bell Fellow, University of Pittsburgh
Richard Falk, Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University; Visiting Distinguished Professor (since 2002), Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Irene Gendzier, Boston University
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies; Director – Middle East Institute, Columbia University
Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology, Columbia University
Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar, Department of Sociology, Yale University
Howard Zinn, professor emeritus, Boston University