In September of this year, the United Nations passed a non-binding Resolution on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Naturally, Canada, the United States and Australia refused to sign, but this resolution paved the way for a move that has been waiting in the wings, so to speak, since the 1970s.
On Wednesday of this week, Russell Means led a delegation of the Lakota Sioux people to the U.S. State Department and the embassies of Bolivia, Chile, South Africa and Venezuela, declaring their secession from the United States of America.
On Wednesday of this week, Russell Means led a delegation of the Lakota Sioux people to the U.S. State Department and the embassies of Bolivia, Chile, South Africa and Venezuela, declaring their secession from the United States of America.
editorial note:
Now let's think this through: five days have elapsed and if any major First Nations spokesperson or group or tribal council is standing against the Lakotah secession, they remain unheard. This is extremely auspicious inofitself. I don't think I am off base when I say that there are responsible individuals and groups amongst First Nations tribes and that, therefore, were this not something everyone concerned really wanted to work then we would have heard something by now. I have personally sent messages to John Trudell and Honor the Earth and this was two days ago. Still nothing.
To my knowledge, each and every of the accumulating mound of objections from many online (any from native leadership remain an exception) cite Russel Means' personal problems as reason to ignore this and, consistently, what is deliberately ignored by these unverifiable sources is that there are three others that will have to be discredited to debunk all of this and, to tell you the truth, now that we can see than nearly everyone (with the exception of some heads of state and some of the world's best known news services) is silent on this all then any sudden proclamation of invalidity would indicate, in all likelihood, that someone sensed a turning of the tide.
Doesn't anyone remember how the French revolution started? We have become such spectators in our very lives that when called to action the people all stand and wait to see if anyone else will answer. Is anyone answering? Word out of Lakotah country seems mixed as well and if nothing else, this stands to be remembered as a few people with chutzpah standing up and challenging the people to take what was theirs and the sheeple answering, "Baa-aaahhh!"
Still, I have hope. After all, each minute that ticks by further validates all of this.
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Lakota Sioux - The Bravest Americans
And So It Begins
In an incredible irony, the very people that the United States have most oppressed throughout our history may hold the key to freedom for all of us.
Few Americans remember the siege at Wounded Knee in the mid-1970s, but perhaps they should. Members of the AIM, or the American Indian Movement, occupied parts of Pine Ridge in protest over the brutal killings of two of their own, the disgustingly mild prosecutions for those murders, and the beating of the mother of one of those two when she attempted to seek justice from the U.S. government. The AIM were seeking their rights under U.S. law and for the U.S. government to honor treaties with the American Indian that had been ignored for more than a century. It was a lawful - and a peaceful until attacked - protest.
In response, the FBI fired almost 200,000 rounds at the protesters (the protesters did fire weapons in their own defense, but only over their attackers' heads) in an illegal show of force that betrayed every ideal of real freedom. The siege at Wounded Knee lasted 71 days. This was Waco decades before Waco, largely ignored by the U.S. population due to media indifference and the fact that the victims were not white Americans.
Later, the defense team for Russell Means and Dennis Banks was infiltrated by a government informant, which led to perjured testimony and a very angry judge who stated that the government was more interested in convictions than in justice. South Dakota Judge Nichols was quoted as saying, "It's hard for me to believe that the FBI, which I have revered for so long, has stooped so low," and dismissed all charges against the defendants.
Apparently, all those years ago, at least a portion of our justice system still operated as it was designed to do.
Leonard Peltier was not so lucky. He was tried in North Dakota, and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in prison. He remains there today, even though evidence recovered after the siege clearly showed that the two FBI deaths were attributable to friendly fire. During his years in prison, through his art and letters, Peltier has continued to work for oppressed people everywhere.
Russell Means has remained free, and he has not been idle in the intervening decades. A committed libertarian, he has written several books, run for office on the Libertarian ticket, and continued to pursue a film career that has made him a household face and name. Apart from that, he has bided his time, waiting for just the right moment in history.
That moment has come. In September of this year, the United Nations passed a non-binding Resolution on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Naturally, Canada, the United States and Australia refused to sign, but this resolution paved the way for a move that has been waiting in the wings, so to speak, since the 1970s.
On Wednesday of this week, Russell Means led a delegation of the Lakota Sioux people to the U.S. State Department and the embassies of Bolivia, Chile, South Africa and Venezuela, declaring their secession from the United States of America.
Means stated, "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us." The lands of the Lakota Sioux encompass portions of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. In the coming weeks, they will take their diplomatic mission overseas to seek further support.
Means also stated that anyone willing to renounce their U.S. citizenship would live on Lakota land tax free, and that the Lakota would issue their own passports and driving licenses. Since a large group of libertarians have recently moved to Wyoming, this opens up some interesting possibilities for a free society growing up in our midst.
The coming road will not be an easy one. I cannot see the U.S. neo-conservatives leaving this alone. I imagine that there will be another bloody and vicious siege taking place on Lakota land, but I also believe that Means has timed his move correctly. If this happens as I fear it will, the neo-conservatives will be the clear authors of their own destruction. The American people have had enough!
You go, Russell!! You are the bravest and best of us, and the sanest and best of America stands with you in the trials you will face over the coming months and years.
* Kathryn A. Graham, author of Flight From Eden and America
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Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
An inconvenient truth
25.12.2007 20:14
Reality check
Reality
26.12.2007 11:10
Ilyan
democracy?
27.12.2007 17:34
Their argument is essentially that they want to have their cake (we can't get elected due to corruption, disunity and dysfunction) and eat it too (therefore we declare that we are in charge and will create a functioning nation from this mess). If they had the power to do the latter, they would have overcome the former long ago.
BUT! IF this action galvanises the spirit of the people and the people themselves can generate and demonstrate the unity and ability to really carry this action out from the ground up, then it will be the greatest achievement since the abolition of slavery. I really hope that happens. I really wish that this group had focused on generating this kind of unity and legitimacy first, before taking such a bold action, as it would have given it a much greater chance of success.
h-l-j
Citizens' Army to Amddiffyn Ein Hunain
28.12.2007 18:12
There was no mandate from a representative legitimate body for the Easter Rising. It would have made no difference, Connolly would still have been tied to a chair and shot.
And after the subsequent terrorism and killing, the manipulative DeValera would still have with-held the meeting that would have prevented the death of Michael Collins. DeValera thereby proved himself as big a shit as any politician. He allowed a better man to be killed to promote his own career path.
Years ago in Wales there was a meeting attended by various Welsh Patriot factions, it was before the setting up of the Assembly. A proposal was put that in view of the torrents of inmigrants who were swamping the Welsh population, a register of people loyal to Wales be setup, starting with those who had bought Welsh Passports at the Eisteddfod, but anyone declaring their first loyally to be to Wales being registered. That register should then be circulated for nominations to elect a Welsh Government free of the corruptions of Westminster.
There would certainly been Police spies present at that meeting, There were Patriots present who had spent time in English prisons for various patriotic actions, had they spoken up in support might they have been recalled? The proposal was not taken up.
An old inmigrant, whose job was threatened by the new class of English inmigrants who were flooding in, made a prediction on the consequences of the work of 'Dear Margaret' (she was very expensive to the UK, selling the family silver and doubling the National debt), and Amddiffyn Ein Hunain decided that Margaret had given them a selective anti-English bio-weapon. In those days BSE only hit Freisian and Holstein Cattle, No Hereford or Welsh Black was getting infected. It was thought that BSE was an old disease that had killed off the susceptible genes in native cattle millenia ago, and would have done the same for people. The Sais would die like flies thanks to Margaret's half baked science.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, some smart Welsh Black breeder in North Wales fed his show Welsh Black suckler cow with BOCM's high protein cattle feed to maximise milk output to grow a super calf. They were sold as champions and exported to Germany. That cow went down with BSE, all the research done by Amddiffyn Ein Hunain was in vain. Cymro as susceptible as Sais.
But the way to strike back at genetically different oppressors is clear. There is a long overdue repayment for the infected blankets that decimated the Mandan to be made. Those murdering thieving swindlers represented Democracy. The corrupt Democracy of the Cities.
Ilyan